End Game
by Phegan
Summary: Ch. 22. "What would you have done, Spike? The day the ISSP came to do what they did to Komodo?"
1. Julia

Endgame  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Julia  
  
It was the shortest skyscraper in the only city on an asteroid called Yakana. It was topped by a perpetually marching zebra-striped teddy bear, and the neon sign indicated the building was just a toy store. Not a likely front for the Komodo Syndicate. By 15:00, it was surrounded by snipers with heat-seeking rifles. By 15:23, the second team was entering the building to make sure no one was left. Kyt Harley went in himself. He wanted to make sure the man who'd killed his mother was dead.  
  
He found him on the top floor, the only floor that wasn't crowded with stuffed toys, stacks of games, and corpses. He was alone in the room, slumped over a computer, hair splayed over the keyboard. Kyt noted this to Agent Delaware over his communicator, then dismissed his troops.  
  
"So Komodo's dissolved. This is gonna change all the syndicates, you know. Komodo had its fingers in most of the syndicate pies," Delaware crackled in his ear.  
  
"You never know with an organization like Komodo. The syndicates weren't even aware Komodo was the controlling hand. It passed itself on as a weak syndicate located in West Bumfuck, Aurora Borealis. They could have prepared for something like this. I hear they've got uncanny cloning techniques these days."  
  
"So run an HPB on the bodies."  
  
"I've got a couple of avenues I'm gonna cover before I'll consider this over," Kyt said. "Then I'll consider your offer to close in on the Red Dragon syndicate. As for now, I want to be alone. Harley out." He turned off the communicator and turned to the body slumped over the keyboard. Slowly, he walked to it, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled the man up so he could get a good look at his face. Ideally, he should have had a more creative death. Realistically, chasing the perfect grudge usually got both parties killed.  
  
Only a second after he became aware of a presence behind him, he felt a brief shock at the base of his spine and lost control of all his muscles. He fell face-down and didn't even feel the floor's sucker punch to his face, though he was sure there would be some damage in the morning. Slowly, the floor rotated into a fixed perspective of the ceiling as he was rolled over. He couldn't even feel the pressure of the person's hands on him, and he certainly didn't have the wherewithal to shout for help or make an alert on his communicator, which of course was the point of a shocker.  
  
An infinitely sad face framed by a tumble of moon-dimmed blonde hair floated into view. It drifted up as the girl stood; she had a gun.  
  
"I don't want to hurt you, but I will," the girl said. "You have to understand, they had my brother. They said they had a kill switch. I saw you coming a couple months ago- I found the kill switch. I'm not making much sense, I know." The girl ran a hand through her hair. She nodded towards the figure of Dios Pyrrh, leader of the Komodo syndicate. "He tried to recruit me, years ago. I used to fight for money. I was the best in Aurora Borealis. But I wouldn't join. My father was a syndicate man. That's why my brother and I were orphaned. But he took him, my brother, and told me that as long as I would work for him he would live. He said if I tried anything funny, if he died, that there was a chip in my brother's brain that would explode if anything went wrong. I. I think I disabled it. I knew you were coming." She leaned down again, put the gun to his temple. "I'm telling you this so you understand that I will kill you if you don't tell me where my brother is. If you shout for help, I'll shoot you. I know I'll die. I'm okay with that. Blink three times if you're ready to talk."  
  
He did.  
  
She placed the shocker at the point where his neck and jaw met. A surge of electricity awakened his face to sensation. Everything below it was still paralyzed. "So?"  
  
"I don't know where your brother is. But the Komodo syndicate uses this sort of recruiting tactic a lot. They always kill the victims right away."  
  
"No- I saw-"  
  
"They have visuals and information and he writes you every week, right? But they fake visuals all the time. They can age a face, and they've got psychologists trained to get all the background possible out of the victims before they die. They're the ones who write the letters. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need to be told this if you weren't so intent on believing your brother's not dead."  
  
He expected her to cry, but her expression didn't change. She rose and stood, as if in deep contemplation, for a moment. "Will you find his body for me?" Her voice broke at the end, knowing it was a request unlikely to be granted.  
  
"There's a card in the inside pocket on the left hand side of my coat. It has my contact information." She wavered, looked at the window and back at him, and he knew she didn't trust him, so he said, "He did the same thing to my mother. My father was Uri Harley."  
  
Her eyes widened in recognition, then relaxed back into their half- lidded sadness. She bent down to retrieve the card, which she pocketed. She lifted his head and placed the shocker at the base of his skull and let off a pulse of electricity that sent his body screaming with pins and needles. He sat up shakily.  
  
"What's your name, anyway?" he asked.  
  
"Julia," she said. She pulled the hood from her cloak over her head and disappeared. Thermoptic camouflage. He supposed it was how she had avoided the heat-seeking rifles. 


	2. The Next Step

All characters and thematic content belong to Bandai and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
It was a few weeks before Julia came to Kyt Harley's office in Yakana. He was closing the chapter on the Komodo syndicate, having run HPB's on the bodies. The only people to have escaped the sniper attack on the headquarters, besides Julia, were two lackeys running a mission on Mars and a liason to the Red Dragon syndicate. Kyt was still deciding what to do with the leftovers of the Komodo syndicate when Julia came to visit him.  
  
Kyt didn't even hear the door open. He looked up and she was just standing there, noiseless as a ghost and looking as pale as one. He tapped his pen against his teeth, looking at her half-lidded eyes.  
  
"We found a body."  
  
"I know."  
  
"We ran an HPB on it."  
  
"I know."  
  
"So you've been breaking into the morgue and tracking our files, huh?"  
  
She shrugged. "That's not why I'm here."  
  
He sighed. He'd hoped she would go her own way after all this. Agent Delaware wanted him to take care of all the loose ends, no matter how they'd gotten mixed up in the Syndicate.  
  
"After my parents died, I started doing the fights. To make money, but. I needed something to do, you know." She turned her head to a window beside him. He realized it was something his father always did. It was the habit of someone always on their guard against possible attack. "I can't really think of anything to do besides Syndicate work. I was thinking you could help me. I overheard you talking to Delaware. I know he's trying to reinstitute the law as an effective force by disassembling the syndicates. I've been looking at all the files he has, most of which the White Tiger syndicate has already accessed, by the way. It's an ineffective campaign. I can make it more effective. I can be a spy."  
  
Kyt just tapped the pen against his teeth.  
  
"You know how I feel about the syndicates. You feel the same way. We can work something out. I can't just walk away from this."  
  
"Yeah," said Kyt. "I know." He leaned back in his chair. "I don't want you to walk away." 


	3. View From the Top

Characters and thematic elements are all properties of Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Mars's two moons floated in the sky like pennies thrown in a wishing well. The Syndicate skyscraper was the highest in the city, and had the best view. Stray fliers flickered over the cityscape of Persepolis like particles in a pulse of blood. Spike leaned back and inhaled a puff of smoke, one hand resting in his pocket.  
  
"They still don't know who did it, huh?"  
  
"No," said Vicious. "There's no indication the hit came from the other syndicates, and the weapons they used were strange."  
  
"I thought heat-seeking rifles were pretty standard," Spike said.  
  
"Not these ones," Vicious replied. His figure was utterly still, except for the tepid breeze across his moon-colored hair. "The bullets don't match any known prototype. They were manufactured by a sleeper company."  
  
"Oh, who cares. The Komodo syndicate's been fading fast anyway. They would have been hit any day now to relieve the Syndicate of their burden."  
  
Vicious smiled thinly. "For someone who lacks any expertise in informatics, you sure presume to know a lot about Syndicate politics."  
  
Spike waved him away with his free hand. "What's to know? Kill strategically, blah blah. The art of War, so on and so forth. Let the rotting contingents go."  
  
"The Komodo syndicate is the most important syndicate, Spike. They only appear weak to remain strong. The Art of War, so on and so forth."  
  
"All I know is, this whole to-do with the Komodo branch is cutting into my mission time, and my cash flow is waning."  
  
Vicious didn't respond, only turned to the view of the city. Spike finished his cigarette and stomped it to death under the toe of his Destroismaison shoe.  
  
"Let's go to this thing, huh?"  
  
As usual, Spike and Vicious were late to syndicate meeting, but as the favored golden boys they got away with it. The elders didn't break their monotone speechmaking as the two took their seats at the Round Table.  
  
"The last of the survivors is perhaps the most valuable," one of the indistinguishable elders was saying. "The highest-rated apprentice of the Komodo syndicate, she was in the building at the time of the attack, which she managed to escape by using thermoptic camouflage and shielding her body with a fallen comrade's. Her expertise lies in informatics, hand-to-hand combat, and the piloting of several different kinds of vehicles. She has been us on Yakana, researching the bodies, and has already come up with some leads." He gestured to his side, where the four Komodo syndicate members stood. Three, the men, were dressed in formal suits. The woman was dressed in white. Spike's eyes narrowed. She looked awfully soft for someone whose expertise was hand-to-hand combat, which was his own expertise. Her bare arms revealed no defined musculature, and her face was that of a china doll's.  
  
The elder who had been speaking gestured dismissal at the gathered table. "Tomorrow I'd like to meet with the munitions experts. Otherwise, you're free for the next few days. Missions will resume Monday." Spike groaned in response to this.  
  
Beside his, Vicious snorted, and Spike looked over to him. His eyes were fixed on the woman. "Doesn't look like the hand-to-hand combat type, huh, Vicious?"  
  
"She was the best fighter in Aurora Borealis," Vicious responded without humor. "Shin fought her once, before she was a syndicate girl."  
  
"How'd he do?" Spike asked.  
  
"How do you think?" Vicious responded. He looked at Spike a moment before turning and exiting to the main hall. "Feel like food?"  
  
Spike grinned. "When don't I?"  
  
* * *  
  
There didn't seem to be any women at all in this branch of the Syndicate, Julia noted to herself as she was led through the room on the arm of Mao Yenrai. Just men, all of them the brash and braggart type, walking like their dicks led them. Everyone who looked at her seemed to be either making plans to seduce her, or, knowing her reputation, making plans to one-up her. It was going to be a few days before she could talk to Kyt without seeming suspicious. They were going to have to come up with a decoy operation they could put the blame on for the fall of the Komodo syndicate. She didn't notice when Mao Yenrai stopped and introduced her to two more members of the Red Dragon syndicate. One of them was waving his hand in front of her face.  
  
"Oh- what? Sorry," she said, shaking her head. She looked at the green- haired man the hand belonged to. He looked unimpressed by her inability to focus. "It's been a busy couple of days," she said as a way of explanation.  
  
He sucked on his cancer stick. "Isn't it always busy when you're in the Syndicate? Or are things different on Yakana?"  
  
"Don't mind him," his silver-haired companion put in before she could respond. "He's grumpy because there's no missions for the next few days."  
  
"Well, no missions for a few days is better than no missions at all if we don't catch whoever did this," Julia said. The green-haired man rolled his eyes, and her own narrowed. The other one was looking at her steadily. There was no judgement in his eyes, or else she couldn't tell what it was. She noticed there was no movement to his figure, that his posture was ramrod straight, but not in a stiff way, as if he was practicing meditation on the spot, whereas the green-haired man was leaning on one leg and was leaning back into the hands crossed behind his head, cigarette dangling Bogart-style between his lips. "What were your names again?"  
  
"Spiegal," the green haired man said, thrusting his hand out. "Spike Spiegal." Julia put her hand in his and he shook it vigorously, almost throwing her off-balance. She turned to the other man.  
  
"Vicious," he said, his lips pressed into a wan smile. He took her hand and gently squeezed it in greeting.  
  
Mao Yenrai was watching the three with his eyes squeezed by an overeager businessman's smile. "Good, good!" he pronounced. "Monday, you three work together on a mission! Show Miss Julia the Red Dragon way. Now you meet the elders. Come, come," he said, head bobbing. He took her arm and led her from the pair. She looked back at them, once.  
  
Spike crushed the cigarette under his toe, sighing in frustration. "What's he thinking, setting us on a mission with a woman? She'll just slow us down."  
  
Vicious smirked in response. "Guess it'll be an easy mission, then."  
  
* * *  
  
Out of habit, Julia checked all the crevices of the hotel she was temporarily assigned to on the other side of town. Then she checked the locks. Satisfied, she closed the curtains and turned on the lights. Turning, she saw a scrap of paper lying on her desk. She leaned in to inspect it. It was blank. She smiled. Kyt's work, definitely. She pulled out an old-fashioned fingerprint kit Kyt had given her a few weeks ago. She opened the jar, stuck the tip of the brush in, and worked it over the paper from corner to corner. The message emerged: Syndicate Library at 22:00. Zadig by Voltaire. Julia sighed. Just when she'd been about to get her long- needed rest.  
  
She took her new model XT-56 motorcyle on the half-hour ride to the library. She couldn't wait to take it apart and fiddle around with it to bring the speed up. For now it only went 150 mph. It brought on a comfortable, floaty feeling, but no real excitement. Her perfect speed was 215. She was one of ten Komodo members who could drive competently at that speed. Speed was one of the few friends she had left. It was the only thing that could induce anything akin to happiness in her any more. That and a good fight in which she didn't have to kill yet another innocent bystander.  
  
She pulled up next to the library, engaged the locks in her bike, and swung around off the bike. It was only 21:00, but she wanted to get to know the set-up of the Red Dragons. Whereas the most important places for the Komodo branch had always been hidden or unlikely environments, she had a feeling the Red Dragons liked to exhult in a sense of gothic romance. Judging from the stained glass encircling the library, she had a feeling she might find some interesting things here. She walked to the door and put in a member card she had swiped from a lackey into the identification system. Hopefully, he wouldn't be penalized if upon questioning it was revealed the card had been stolen. She might keep it to plant on someone who inconvenienced her in the future. She walked through the door and looked around her. The room was circular, lit by the colored moonlight that spilled through the stained glass. Below her, an ampitheater of metallic bookshelves descended twelve levels down. Voltaire. That would be at least ten levels down. Well, at least there were a few interesting-looking doors on the twelfth level as well. She started to descend the staircase.  
  
She found the volume on the ninth level. They seemed to have everything the guy had written. She wondered idly if this was only a literary library, and looking at the authors she recognized concluded that it was. She flipped through the volume. Another slip of paper fell from it. She bent down to read it. It read,  
  
"There is another one. He will reveal himself to you."  
  
Julia stuck out her lower lip and blew her bangs off her face, wondering how Harley had managed to stick someone into the Red Dragon syndicate. She'd thought she was the first syndicate spy. She closed the volume and rose to put it back on the shelf. When she turned around, Spike Spiegal was standing behind her. She stepped back in momentary surprise. "Spike," she said.  
  
He cocked his head. "Julia. Odd time to be in a library. I was expecting to run into Kyle Woo, since he's the one they sent me to find. You haven't seen Kyle anywhere, have you?"  
  
Julia cursed under her breath. "I-just got here."  
  
"Mmm," Spike said, frowning. "According to the lock file, so did Kyle. About fifteen minutes ago, actually. So what'cha reading?" he asked, bending down to receive the slip. Julia's blood ran cold. He rose, smiling a little. "I knew it," he said, and turned up from the paper.  
  
"Knew what?" She chided herself for this piss-poor attempt at covering her ass. She stopped herself before she started to say the paper wasn't hers.  
  
Spike drew his gun. "Well well, little miss Julia who only joined the syndicate once her brother was kidnapped and now that he's dead doesn't have any reason to be here-You wouldn't happen to be a spy, would you?" 


	4. Spike

All characters and thematic elements belong to Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc. Please please please review, please!  
  
Chapter 4  
  
This was not good. Julia couldn't think. Normally, she was good in these situations. Spike's gun was inches from her face. She drew in her breath, let it out.  
  
"Well?" Spike asked. "Are you a spy?"  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
He laughed. "This is so bad. It's so obvious. Once the Komodo syndicate was disbanded and you found out your brother was dead, you would have left. And how is it you were the only one in the building who survived?"  
  
"Therm-"  
  
"Shut up. You probably had something to do with it, didn't you? And how are you going to begin to explain why you're in the library at this hour and with Kyle Woo's identity card that you probably have in your pocket right now?"  
  
He put the barrel of the gun to her temple, took the safety off, and began to rummage through the pockets of her coat. It wasn't in the left or right pocket, so he turned her so her face was pressed against the spines of the books and began to tear her jacket off. The gun wasn't pressed against her skull any more, so she grabbed Spike's wrist and dug her fingers into a pressure point. He began to lose his grip on the gun.  
  
"Easy, girl," he breathed and tried to throw her to the ground. She didn't let go of his wrist and used his weight to start bending it in the wrong direction. He grunted. She brought her left foot down on his left foot, and as he brought it off the ground she kicked at his kneecap with her other foot. Thoughtlessly he tried to take the weight off this leg and fell to his knees on the ground. Their hands were both still locked on the gun. "Kinda rough for a girl, huh?" he asked.  
  
"Try it without a gun like a man," she replied. Then she kicked him in the face, hard. He fell back but didn't let go of the gun, bringing her down with him. He started laughing. "You really are unbelievably obvious and not particularly astute," he snorted. She stopped struggling, wondered if that was what he wanted her to do. "Not only are you the worst candidate for a spy in the history of mankind, but you can't figure out who the other one is." He let go of the gun and dropped his head back to the floor, laughing as if he'd just pulled the prank of the century. Which he just had. Julia climbed off of him, the gun still in her hand. He could be lying. She rose, and leaned against the bookshelf, and ran her free hand through her hair. Spike was still laughing.  
  
"Explain yourself," she said softly. Spike looked up. The gun was pointed at his temple. He looked up, which ended up being horizontally since he was lying on the floor, as if in thought. Then he took a communicator out of his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and put it to his ear.  
  
"Yeah, Kyt?" he said. "She doesn't believe me." He nodded. "Yeah, she is that type." He looked up at her and extended the phone as an offering. Julia took it, feeling a little like an idiot. Spike, still prone, lit a cigarette.  
  
"Hey," Julia said noncommitantly into the receiver.  
  
"Julia, Spike has been employed by Delaware for the past three years." She looked down at him. He winked at her.  
  
"'Kay," she said. "Bye."  
  
She tossed the phone down to him. "Women," he said.  
  
"Thank you, Spike."  
  
"You're welcome. What for?"  
  
"I've been very angry for a long time, in a my brother was killed I want to kill everyone who ever thought the word Syndicate kind of a way. But it's been a long, long time since I've felt angry in the trivial I'm gonna kick your ass way." She looked over at the gun, then at Spike, then threw the gun nine levels up to the top. "Let's do this without the gun."  
  
He shrugged. "Gotta finish my smoke."  
  
She waited for him to finish his cigarette, which he did while lying on his back and throwing quizzical looks up towards her. He finished his last drag, looked fondly at the cigarette, then mashed it on the ground. He was on his feet within one backwards flip. Julia wasn't impressed.  
  
"I should warn you," he said. "I don't hit women."  
  
"That's alright," she said, shrugging off her coat. "You'd never hit me anyway." He bounced on his feet a little, bouncing closer and then farther away from her, not willing to throw a punch. Julia just stood there with her arms folded. "What?" she asked after fifteen minutes of this. "Scared?"  
  
"Oh, come on!" he said, and then, so fast she almost didn't see it, bounded up to her and put her in a headlock. "Ha! Miss you'd never hit me anyway."  
  
"You didn't hit me," she said calmly, then brought her leg up behind her and cracked him so hard on the head it made a sound. He sat down, stunned. She thought it would probably be fair to wait for him to recover before she hit him again, but decided against it. She delivered a roundhouse to his ear, and he fell to his side. She leaned down to inspect him. He was out. She kicked at him experimentally, and the next thing she knew he'd grabbed her by her ankles and was dangling her over the railing.  
  
"Pink underwear, huh?" he goaded her. "Very traditional. Now yield."  
  
Julia, upside down and with her skirt hanging down to her shoulders, folded her arms. "No way."  
  
"I'll drop you."  
  
"No you won't."  
  
He let go of her ankles for a moment, causing her to shriek, and at the last moment grabbed one of them. "Yield!" he commanded.  
  
"You didn't drop me," she said. "And just wait until I get back up there."  
  
"Okay, fine, I'll dangle you there all night and stare up your skirt."  
  
"Go ahead."  
  
"It's a nice view, I've gotta say."  
  
"Oh, fuck you."  
  
"Name the time and the place."  
  
"How did I know that was coming?" Julia sighed. "Fine. I yield."  
  
Smiling, he brought her back up and set her on her feet over the railing. "That's more reasonable."  
  
"Whatever. Do we have business to discuss or what?"  
  
"Yes," Spike said, lighting another cigarette. "The mission we're assigned to is to track down the decoy organization Harley and Delaware have set up. We're gonna be going to the sleeper factory that made the bullets, and they're gonna lead us to this Illuminati group, which is a real group. We've just gotta kill them before anyone finds out they weren't responsible for the Komodo coup."  
  
"Is that what they're calling it these days?"  
  
Spike just grinned at her. Julia glared at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I won," Spike said.  
  
"Yes, you won. Is there anything else we need to discuss?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Good," Julia said, and went to grab her coat. She stood and walked past Spike to the stairs. "And Spike?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
She turned around and delivered a swift kick to the balls. The cigarette dropped from his lips and his skin went white. He crashed to his knees in agony. "I won." 


	5. Red Herring

All characters and themes belong to Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
Endgame  
  
Chapter 5  
  
Spike lurched into the back of The Barracuda, Julia's ship from her time in the Komodo syndicate. Vicious smirked at the green tinge to his face.  
  
"Couldn't take it, hmmm?" he asked slyly, walking an old Earth coin from finger to finger down his hand.  
  
"Neither could you," Spike put in defensively. "I mean it's fine when you're not watching the meteors she's aiming for whizzing past you a half- second from impact. Women drivers."  
  
"From what I hear, they're a lot worse than this. You couldn't pilot a ship this fast."  
  
"Sure I could," Spike argued, flipping a smoke to his lip.  
  
Vicious pocketed the coin. "Give me one."  
  
Spike scowled in annoyance, then threw a cigarette over to Vicious, who caught it neatly between his smoking fingers, then produced a lighter, and, with a fancy turn of his fingers, lit the cigarette and made the lighter disappear. Then he relaxed into his normal state of zen staticity. Spike rested his head in his upturned arms, smoking like a train.  
  
Julia appeared in the door Spike had just come through.  
  
"This is too much!" Spike shouted. "Crazy driving, fine, but at least pilot the ship, Julia!"  
  
"I was just coming back to say we've docked at Jupiter," she replied with her usual near-bored calmness.  
  
"What about the asteroid belt?" Spike asked.  
  
She gave an offhand wave with her hand. "Slim pickings. Time to grab your bikes, boys. We're in for a bumpy ride. I've already programmed the location into your boards."  
  
The two partners rose and eyed each other. "I think she wants to race us," Vicious said."  
  
Julia smiled at him, and then wordlessly disappeared to the hangar.  
  
Julia got to the sleeper factory first, but she was neck in neck with Spike and Vicious most of the time, and Vicious did pass her a few times before it became apparent to him that it was dangerous to do so. Julia had a habit of bumping tires with anyone that got ahead of her, which always unnerved the victim more than the perpetrator.  
  
They had already studied the layout of the factory and decided the informatics locus would be in the northwest corner of the building. They stood on the perimeter while Spike prepared his tools. Julia was standing in her catsuit, eyes shielded against the sun, examining the perimeter. Spike noticed Vicious stealing covert glances at her. He nodded towards them when he was prepped. Spike got them past the locks and the security, more noisily than was necessary, but effectively. Vicious took care of the more out of hand guards, and Julia didn't have any left to bother with. When they got to the informatics locus Julia took charge. Within moments the necessary information was on the screen. It was too easy to access, having been programmed in by Delaware's less than crack hacking squad. She looked uneasily at Spike, who just nodded. The sale of three hundred and twelve of the heat-seeking rifles whose bullets fit the description was attributed to the Illuminati, whose address, as Julia and Spike already knew, was on an old bomb shelter on Earth. Spike gave a convincing surprised growl at the information.  
  
"Nothing good comes from earth," he said.  
  
"It's a hell of a hide-out, what with the meteors," Vicious pointed out. Julia smiled at the easy sell. She holographically recorded the information and they were out faster than they had been in.  
  
They took the Barracuda back to Vicious's luxury ship, the Narwhal, which Vicious had remote navigated from Mars. Spike tried to argue Julia into letting him pilot the ship most of the way back, but Julia refused. Vicious looked on with a bemused, if somewhat weary eye. He was glad Julia was the one at the controls, since it meant they would be at the Narwhal faster.  
  
Once they'd docked , Spike immediately headed for the bathroom. Vicious noted the half-hidden smile on Julia's normally expressionless face.  
  
"You give him a hard time on purpose, don't you?" he asked her. She turned to him, half-lidded blue eyes meeting his gold ones. She didn't respond, but the smile managed to hide itself back into her game face. They looked at each other for an uncomfortably long time, like their shared stare was a challenge neither wanted to lose. It was broken by Spike striding between them.  
  
"I need dinner," he muttered as he strode past them into the kitchen.  
  
"Guess he needs to replace the contents he just threw up," Julia suggested with a note of amusement in her voice.  
  
Vicious gave her a knowing smile. "Care for any food yourself?"  
  
"Sure," she replied, and together they followed Spike's path to the kitchen. Julia stifled a gasp when she saw it. The entire thing was tiled in spotless pearl white, and the spice rack alone took up half a wall. There were mechanical servants darting to and fro. Spike was currently engaged in a battle with one for a wok. She realized that even the Syndicate didn't provide the kind of wealth displayed here, and wondered how Vicious had become so wealthy.  
  
"What do you feel like eating?" he asked her.  
  
"What do you have?" she asked.  
  
"Every food group," he replied.  
  
"Fish, then I guess. Surprise me."  
  
He nodded, then bent over a control panel. The mechanical servants started to whiz around, banging open cabinets and refrigerators, of which Vicious had three. The servant Spike was fighting abandoned him, and he triumphantly held up the wok. Vicious turned to Julia.  
  
"It should be ready within twenty minutes. I'm just going to go to the navigation room to program the coordinates for Earth." She nodded, and he left the room. He seemed to float when he walked. His head was always at the same level, never displaced by his steps.  
  
Julia turned to Spike, who was grabbing ingredients from around the room as if he knew it from top to bottom. She placed her elbows on a nearby countertop and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. "How long have you been partners with him?"  
  
"Three years," said Spike, slicing up bits of vegetables and throwing them into the wok..  
  
"And you're friends?"  
  
His back was turned to her, so she couldn't see the expression on his face. It was a moment before he said, in an odd voice, "Best friends."  
  
Julia wasn't sure how to react. Even in the Komodo syndicate, she wasn't close to one of the people there, having decided they were all murderers, even those who were in the same position she had been put in. She had liked Kyt's father. "But what about when-"  
  
"Not here," Spike cut her off. "Not anywhere. I can't do my job if I let myself think that way." He started to fry his food, expertly dodging the servants around him. He tossed the food up in his wok, then turned to her, placing one hand in his pocket. "Truth is, I would have ended up in the Syndicate if Delaware hadn't given me a job. Hell, I'm as good as a Syndicate man. I murder the same people." Turning back, he muttered, "So do you."  
  
The barb cut. Julia didn't ever think about the killing much. Her aversion to it had been programmed out of her in her early days with Komodo. Funny how it became something like an addiction. She had come back to the Syndicate ways of her own volition. Still, searching for it, she couldn't find any guilt. It was the barb that cut, not the truth behind it. She glared at Spike's back before turning to leave the kitchen.  
  
She began to wander the halls of the ship, making a map in her head with the entrance and the kitchen as the center of it. The halls were all claustrophobic tunnels made of cool metal, occasionally lined with doors. None of them would open, so she guessed the rooms' measurements by the angles of the turns within the halls. At the end of one hall was a window, past which the stars whizzed by. She walked towards it until it opened into a large deck. There were plants everywhere, exotic, poisonous-looking breeds she didn't recognize. The floor was carpeted thickly enough for her to feel her feet sink down half-an-inch or so. There were huge, blood-red pillows strewn around. Overall, the deck gave the impression of being an intensely comfortable trap.  
  
"You should be careful, wandering around like that," Vicious said behind her, sending bone-cold fingers down her back. She turned to him. He looked at her impassively, something hidden in his eyes that she couldn't make out. "You might get lost."  
  
"Vicious," she said. His lips quirked at his name. She turned back to the window. "I never get lost. How did you find me, anyway?"  
  
"I didn't. I was coming here myself."  
  
"Everything is red and green," she said, almost to herself. "The color of death and life."  
  
"That's all there is, in the end, isn't it?" He said, and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she closed her eyes at the sensation. "We should go." She turned, nearly brushing against him as she did so, he was so close. His mouth opened, and he stepped back. A flicker of some emotion crossed his eyes- fear? "Dinner's ready." 


	6. Nothing Good Comes from Earth

All characters and thematic content belong to Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
Chapter 6  
  
The Illuminati was a century-old organization that had once subtly controlled the mechanics of Earth politics, until the moon incident. Once the population had exploded into the planets they lost a great deal of influence, and had been trying for a long time to regain it. It had made them an ideal scapegoat as far as Delaware was concerned. There were only men in the organization, but they had a misogynist obsession with women, which made Julia the ideal candidate to infiltrate their base. Apparently they liked to kidnap women and hold them on the premises as trophies. Once on the premises, Julia would activate a quick-working poison that killed only men. She had to wonder if Vicious had manufactured the poison from his plants. After all, poisons were one of his expertises, and he did seem to consider the Narwhal his home.  
  
They left the Narwhal in orbit past the moon and navigated the Barracuda through the occasional meteor spray. Julia still wouldn't let Spike pilot. They docked in California some miles away from the location of the Illuminati base, and Julia left Spike and Vicious behind. They would go their own way to wait by the base in case she needed them as back-up. They brought gas-masks with them and the alert communicators, one of which she wore on her hip bone.  
  
She dressed as a visiting Martian, which wasn't hard since her own wardrobe had lately come from Mars. Then she rode her motorcycle to a high- class restaurant she knew Illuminati members frequented. She had dozens of their profiles in her head, which wasn't really necessary since most of them wore the 33-degree Masonic symbol on their jackets.  
  
Entering the club, she saw why she would be a prime candidate for being kidnapped by the Illuminati. For some reason, whether it was the meteors or the Illuminati, there were very few women in the restaurant, and of those most were hardened and ugly from survival on Earth. She stood at the door for a moment, waiting for everyone's eyes to note her presence, while she scoped out the room. Rich, on Earth, wasn't really as flattering to the eye as it was elsewhere. Everyone was dressed in second-rate suits or dresses that they'd probably gotten off the blackmarket. It made the members of the Illuminati stand out. They were dressed in the finest Venetian designs, wore their hair Martian-style, and had the distinctive Masonic emblem on their lapels. Julia moved slowly through the room, chin high and her eyes meeting no one. She'd long learned how to dominate a room. She'd been taught by the best, Tussaud, one of the most notorious courtesans in the galaxy. The occupants parted from her. She drifted through a mixture of jealousy and desire, and stopped at the bar. There she ordered an old Earth wine, one that had been bottled before the Moon collapsed and whose year had just come. She knew there were people who came to Earth just to taste it. There were apparently only one hundred bottles of the stuff. Luckily, her supply from the Red Dragon syndicate covered it. The bartender procured the money before serving her the drink. As she put the glass to her lips she became aware of a presence beside her. From the Venetian cologne she guessed it was a member of the Illuminati.  
  
"It isn't often you see someone order La Narcisse," the man beside her said. She turned to the man. He had ruby-colored eyes framed by hair the same color. If it was possible his hair captured the light at well as his eyes. He was unusually tall, well-built, and Julia guessed he must be the one the Illuminati always sent to procure a new trophy. She allowed an aloof smile to play her lips and sipped the wine, holding it in her mouth to savour it.  
  
"Why else would anyone come to Earth?" she said. "It's too bad they refuse to export it."  
  
"There are some who say," he said, leaning closer, "the experience is better when the surroundings are so poor."  
  
Julia appraised the man as if she were looking at a jewel. She saw he enjoyed it, knowing in the end he would be chosen.  
  
"Enjoy your wine," he told her. "I'll be waiting outside for you." He stood and walked back, confident enough not to spare a glance back at her. Julia sighed. Rich, confident men. Exactly the kind she despised. Hopefully this mission would be over soon. She took her time finishing the wine. It was the best she'd had, but then she was more of a vodka person. She left the bartender a tip and made her way outside, noting that the Illuminati members were watching her leave, and one of them started to speak into a communicator one she started to leave.  
  
The winds were high outside and carried flecks of dirt that hit her skin. The ruby-haired man was leaning against a ruby-colored car. Julia tried not to roll her eyes.  
  
"Shall we go?" he asked.  
  
"How do you know I came for you? I might be on my way back to Mars," she couldn't resist pointing out. He didn't answer, only smiled. She brushed her hair past her bare shoulder and walked over to him. He was looking at the leg she exposed whenever she put her right foot forward. She stopped inches away from him, smirked, and said, "But of course you know I came for you." He tilted her chin up and stared at her for an unbearably long time before he kissed her, tongue sliding into her mouth like a snake. She cringed, hoping it would go no farther than that until they got to the base. He turned her around and leaned her against the car, pressing himself against her and groping her breast. She grunted and he took it for a moan, and brought the hand down to her bare leg, slipping it up and far to near the communicator. It was when he started tugging down her underwear that she gave up. "OK, that's it," she muttered, kneeing him in the groin and brandishing a gun. "In the car," she instructed him. "Hurry." She watched him as he stumbled to the driver's side, glaring at her. She let herself in on the passenger side, and cocked the gun at his temple. "The communicator on your shoulder. Take it off." He did so, refusing to look at her. "Go to the base. Now. I know exactly where it is so don't try anything funny. Call your friends and tell them to meet you there in half an hour."  
  
He took another communicator, this one in the car, and spoke into it. "Yeah. I got her. Be there in half an hour. I'm gonna have fun with her first." Once he clicked off, she laughed out loud.  
  
"Make sure to park outside of the line of sight. We'll wait for your friends to make it into the base before we go in."  
  
True to his word, he didn't try any funny stuff and parked behind the base. Julia couldn't see any signs of Spike or Vicious, but then, they were good at covering signs of their presence. The man still wasn't looking at her, but he did seem somewhat confident for someone being controlled at gunpoint.  
  
"What's your story?" he asked at one point. "What are you planning to do, take us out for the sake of womankind?" Julia didn't answer, wondering why he even bothered to ask. "Are you from the syndicate?" Again, she kept silent, but promised to herself if he spoke again she'd shoot him in the shoulder. Luckily, he didn't. A trail of cars pulled up to the base. Once she was sure the drivers had all made their way into the building, she gestured with her gun that they should leave.  
  
He whistled and kept his hands in his pockets as he walked. Julia kicked him lightly. He took the hint and pulled his hands from his pockets, shrugging. They walked in the door. It was lucky she had the ruby-haired man in front of her, because the whole organization had their guns cocked and ready for her. Almost without thinking, she released the poison and braced the man in front of her, shooting at a couple men. One managed to shoot the gun out of her hand, and then she kept entirely behind her captive. After a minute, the shots stopped, but her captive hadn't become victim to the poison. He untangled himself from her and turned with a malicious grin. "I'm so glad you used poison," he said. Julia's mind was racing. She went for the gun on the floor, but the man kicked it away from her. He grabbed her by the front of her dress, tearing it a little, and shoved her against a cement pillar. She activated her alert communicator.  
  
"What the-" He slapped her.  
  
"That's for kneeing me in the groin," he said. His eyes traveled hungrily down her body. "Looks like I get to have fun with you after all. He took the strap of her dress and slowly began to slide it down her arm. "You see," he breathed, "Poison doesn't work on me." Then he clamped his lips on her neck, breaking the skin with his teeth. Her muscles froze in paralysis. He moved his head back up and looked into her shock-frozen eyes, staring past him to the door, where Vicious had appeared, with Spike behind him. They were both wearing gas masks. Oblivious, the ruby-haired man continued to slide the strap down her arm, exposing a breast. Vicious's face contorted behind the mask, and in one movement he leapt and drew a katana from his coat. He sliced across. The man's head disappeared into a ruby gurgle of blood. His body fell before her, and without its support, Julia's paralyzed body started to fall to the floor. Vicious caught her in his arms, realizing something had happened to her. He looked intently into her face.  
  
"Julia," he said, his voice distorted by the mask. She couldn't answer. Tenderly, he slid her dress up to cover her.  
  
She heard Spike behind him say, "Must be one of those mutations-the moon caused a lot of them."  
  
Vicious stood with her frozen body cradled in his arms. "I think one of the antidotes to a juy leaf should revive her."  
  
"Is she conscious?" Spike asked.  
  
"I don't know what type of venom he used," Vicious replied.  
  
"Let's get out of here," Spike said. "This place gives me the creeps."  
  
"It's just a bomb shelter," Vicious said while following him to their motorcycles.  
  
"Not the base," Spike said. "Earth."  
  
The End  
  
O.K. Just a note: More reviews means faster updates. 


	7. Things Change

All characters and themes belong to Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
I guess this account didn't allow anonymous reviews. I changed the settings, so hopefully it does now. So send them reviews in! This is a pitiful showing for the amount of chapters I have. Thank you! (especially Emi)  
  
Chapter 7  
  
It all came back to Julia in a rush of melted images. Ruby red, Vicious's face. She sat up. She was wearing the same red dress she had that night, and wondered how long she'd been out. Her head felt about three sizes too small, and she felt the urge to vomit but knew there wasn't anything to come up. Gingerly, she looked around the room for signs of Vicious or Spike. Luckily, they weren't anywhere to be found. She groaned again, not at the pain embracing her body but at the thought they had seen her so weak. Especially Spike. He was the person who she most needed to be blind to any of her weak spots. He already thought she was weak. She stood up with a growl of frustration and sat down just as quickly, hugging her head to her chest. The door opened ten times too loud, and Spike emerged through the door.  
  
"Hey," he said as she composed herself, leaning against the door frame. "Vicious said the antidote he came up with should work about now. He's coming up with something for the pain."  
  
Julia nodded, hoping vainly he'd leave her to her misery.  
  
"You okay?" His voice caught in the middle of the sentence, as though he didn't know whether or not he should ask.  
  
"Fine," she said. She could tell he wanted to say something, so she continued, "I just need a shower and a change of clothes, if you don't mind. How long have I been out?"  
  
"Five hours," Spike replied.  
  
Julia stood and steeled herself against the urge to sit back down. "Boy works fast, doesn't he?"  
  
"Yeah." He gave her a sympathetic glance that she hated him for before he left.  
  
Julia lurched towards what she hoped was the bathroom. A wave of relief passed over her when she saw a Jacuzzi the size of a small pool. Hopefully the hot water would relieve the pain. She turned on the tap and began to slip off her dress.  
  
* * *  
  
Julia didn't answer the tentative knock on her door so Vicious went in, thinking perhaps the antidote hadn't worked as well as he'd thought. The empty bed and steam coming from the bathroom told him otherwise. He started to leave when he heard Julia.  
  
"Vicious?"  
  
He cleared his throat. "It's me. I have something for the pain."  
  
"Oh." There was a pause, then the sound of water being stepped out of. Minutes later Julia emerged wrapped in a towel, her wet hair plastered over her shoulders and her skin pink from the heat. She was being careful not to show any pain, but Vicious could tell by the extreme rigidity of her posture and gait the toll being forcefully paralyzed for six hours had taken on her. "Thank you," she said, carefully extending her hand and barely wincing.  
  
"It's an injection," he said, producing a vial and syringe from his pocket.  
  
"Oh," she said, again, biting her lip. She sat down on the bed, wet hair making transient stains on the sheets. Her arm was still extended. Vicious filled the syringe. Then he gently took her arm, probed for a vein, and slid the needle into her arm. Julia showed no response to the pain. Her face still wore an expression of that half-lidded calm, that seeming softness that hid a strength whose price he wondered at. Vicious withdrew the needle. Julia didn't look at him.  
  
"It's all right, you know," he told her. "We're comrades. We look out for each other. I know you think you made a mistake, but no one can play a bum card like that. You had more than one bum card, and you made it farther than most men I know would have."  
  
Julia looked at him, the grip of her gaze overpowering. "I don't need your justifications." She stood, with much more ease than she'd sat. "It's working. Good thing we had a poisons expert on hand." She looked back at him, offered a half-hearted smirk to soften her words. "I'm going to finish my bath, if you don't mind."  
  
He left her to her recovery. He headed, as he often did, to the deck. Spike was lying back on some of the blood-colored pillows, smoking. Vicious stood, watching the stars through the frame of his plants. He didn't say a word.  
  
"She all better now?" Spike asked.  
  
"She's fine."  
  
"She's a lot of trouble," he offered. Vicious didn't reply. Spike sucked on his cigarette. It had cemented, the second he saw Vicious go for the Illuminati man with a passion he never allowed himself in battle. The way he cradled Julia's body as he walked her to the bikes, the speed with which he'd concocted an antidote from the juy plant, his prized possession, one of seventeen known samples. Spike wanted to say something in warning, thought about how bad his own betrayal would be when the time came to shut down this branch of the Syndicate. It would be worse in Julia's case. If she even knew what Vicious already felt for her. But there was nothing he could say. So he just finished his cigarette and left Vicious to come to his own conclusions.  
  
It was a short time before they docked at Mars and were off to their assorted homes. Julia was pale and silent, Vicious was brooding, and Spike was sick of both of them. Once again this job seemed like it was dragging on far to long and with far too many complications. He sped to his loft in the rain, taking turns too sharp for the weather, on purpose. He didn't know what he hoped to achieve with his impatient taunts at death. Once home, he made a report to Kyt Harley and tried to drown out his musings on Vicious and Julia with television and cigarettes, until it was time to convene with the elders.  
  
* * *  
  
Vicious could tell the elders weren't happy about something. He wondered if one of their soothsayers had something or another to say about the whole Illuminati situation. Neither Julia nor Spike seemed to notice anything off-key during their report. However, Vicious realized it had nothing to do with the Illuminati situation, when he ran into Mao Yenrai on the way out.  
  
"Vicious," the old man said with pleading eyes. "Leave soon!" Julia and Spike slowed their steps in curiosity. Mao kept on glancing at the hallway behind him. Spike frowned at him, demanding an answer Vicious couldn't give.  
  
"Mao," Vicious said, pulling his arm back from the man.  
  
"Leave," he hissed. "Hurry!"  
  
Vicious was about to say something when his father burst through the door.  
  
Spike had never seen Vicious afraid, and the sight of it made him sick to his stomach at whatever could cause it. There was a reason for Vicious's name, a lack of fear that verged on madness, something that intimidated Spike when he saw it. And Spike wasn't easily intimidated.The man's presence broke into the room the way a knife broke through skin. His speeding, tyrannical gait threatened to overtake Vicious. It was the way a murderer walks towards its victim, and Vicious took a step back. The man enfolded Vicious into a hug, Vicious's face recovering over the man's shoulder. Spike spared a glance to Julia, who was coolly surveying the situation.  
  
"Son," the man said, clapping Vicious on his back.  
  
"Father," Vicious managed, weakly. Mao had regained his composure and pumped Vicious's father's hand vigorously.  
  
"Pleasure, Mr. Dragon," Mao said.  
  
Vicious's father turned towards Spike and Julia, and proclaimed in a booming voice, "Friend? Or foe!" The question was meant for Vicious, who didn't answer. The man whirled around to Vicious. "Learn to answer me, boy," he said in a sinister whisper.  
  
"I've learned when I shouldn't answer you at all," Vicious said seriously.  
  
The man giggled. It was a madman's giggle, high-pitched and uncontrolled. "Right you are, my boy," he said. Then, "You know why I've come here, don't you?"  
  
"It's my birthday in a week," Vicious replied. His voice had gone miles beyond desolate. He refused to look at Spike or Julia.  
  
"That's right," his father said. "Time for another test." A cold hand grabbed Vicious's heart and squeezed. 


	8. Vicious

Someone was knocking on her door. Julia opened it, and Vicious was standing there like he didn't know what he was doing there. Ever since he'd seen his father he'd lost all his rigid Zen composure.  
  
"Vicious," she said. "Come in." She restrained the urge to take his hand and gestured for him to take a seat after closing the door behind him. He looked around her room in approval. It was small, and Spartan. There was no more furniture than necessary, and nothing else. No television, plants, books, or anything. There was only a Disc Player in the corner. She stood over him and he was grateful for the calmness in her face. There was no pity there. He couldn't take the look in Spike's eyes. He couldn't talk to him. Spike's life was easy, comparatively. "Do you want tea?" she asked.  
  
"Liquor," he said.  
  
"I have vodka from Titan," she offered. He nodded. She was in the kitchen and back within minutes. She placed a flute of vodka in the center of the table and two shot glasses on either side of it. She filled his glass, and then her own. "Drink," she instructed. He did, and then she did. She didn't ask him why he had come. She filled their shot glasses again, and they drank, and slowly the tension that had laced his chest began to unfold.  
  
"I know about your brother," he said after their third glass. She winced, and said nothing. "I wondered why you didn't leave all this when Komodo fell."  
  
"I didn't have anything else," she said. He nodded. "Besides," she said, "They would have tracked me down, or held me responsible for Komodo. More people I knew could have been killed."  
  
She wasn't looking at him. She made it all sound very practical. Perhaps it was to her by now, but he suspected it wasn't, and he felt a brief flame of anger light and quiver out inside him. "I've known a lot of people, who died," he said, finally. He took the flute and filled himself a fourth glass. "The first one was my sister," he said, and drank the shot. "I didn't want to join the syndicate. I was sixteen. I thought I had a choice. My father asked me to make my choice, on my birthday, and I did, and he shot my sister in front of me. Every year, on my birthday, he kills someone. Sometimes I know them, sometimes I don't. If I've done good work he'll only shoot my maid. If not, he'll shoot my friends. He killed an Elder. He can kill anyone. Do you know, Julia, that the syndicate is run by blood? By families? My father is of the Red Dragon blood, and this is the way they train their sons." He hadn't expected to speak at such length. He turned to Julia. She was staring straight ahead, just a profile. He filled his glass again and walked to the window of her room. Walking past her, he thought he saw a glimmer of a tear on her right cheek, but he was too drunk, by now, to bother confirming his vision.  
  
Julia understood what it was she saw in Vicious's eyes, and the rigidity of his posture, a strength too strong that he had taken on those years ago, harder than any material, but like a diamond, so brittle that it would shatter like glass at the right angle. People moved to accommodate his strength, not wanting to break it and face the shards. Unless it softened he would not survive long with it, as she had survived with the soft weight of sadness for so many years, simply waiting for the burden to lessen.  
  
His story had been a relief to her, to know someone had suffered as she had, to know someone had suffered more. Finally the strength she'd suspected in herself had a shape, and a reason. She stood, walked over to his figure by the window. The shot glass was empty. She took it from his hand and placed it on her Disc Player. She turned him to her. His posture was stiff, but he turned without resistance.  
  
She moved her hand to the hard line of his tensed jaw, hoping to give him an asylum within which he could rest. His eyelids lowered, considering the implications of her offer, but he didn't move in response. She moved closer to him, gauging the gaze that refused to meet hers, and under her left hand she felt a facial muscle flex. She moved her hand to brush back his hair, traced the hard line of muscle that guarded the back of his neck. Slowly, as if she were moving towards a frightened cat, she arched her feet so that she stood on her toes, and crept closer to him until her mouth covered his. She could see his eyes close and tighten, and though his lips didn't move they took in the warmth of her lips as though she were a blanket in the winter. She lingered by his mouth, then moved to the place where his jaw met his neck, then kissed the half-moon of his collar bone. Her hand slid from his neck to his shirt, and she slipped her finger to break each button from its hole until it rested on the cleft of his pants. Moving her lips from his skin, she leaned back to see his eyes still closed. She grasped his shirt and open coat and pushed both from his shoulders, then slipped the fabric down his arms. He parted his lips, unconsciously, and she met them again with her own.  
  
Suddenly, he grabbed her arm with a hand made of iron, gripping so hard it hurt. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, violently, and she embraced it with the warm caress of her soft tongue. His other hand pulled her by the small of her back into an angry kiss with his pelvis, and she gasped at the sensation of his erection pressed against her stomach. He began to undress her, his actions hard and smooth with violence. She met him only with softness, and their energies flowed back and forth, hard into soft, violence into peace, until he released all his diamond-brittle strength into her with a sharp gasp. He fell, naked and spent, into her arms, and, serene, she traced the tips of her fingers up and down his back, which he shivered at. Vicious reveled in this new softness, this empty contentment he had not felt since he came of age with the death of his sister, and marveled that it was even possible to feel such relief. He knew it would not be possible, after this, to live without it. 


	9. Running Away and Back Again

Chapter 9  
  
The Bird  
  
Julia had lost herself, in a moment she couldn't take back. She told herself it was the vodka, Vicious's story, a breaking point that had to be prevented. She could believe all this, but it didn't stop her from the realization, upon waking up next to Vicious's boy-fragile sleeping figure, that this kind of fix would be worse than the break. She cursed, silently, in her head. There was a moment of panic, where she knew with absolute certainty that she would run to the farthest corner of the colonized galaxy before Vicious could open his eyes. Then she knew with absolute certainty that everything had changed, and that she would find a way to take Vicious out of this life. Her revenge on the Syndicate, after all, had been had. Now she could save someone much like herself. Softened by her resolution, she turned to look at Vicious, his sleeping body lithe under the thin sheets. She was about to trace her hand over his skin when she saw a bird in the window. It was a dark bird, and it was a few minutes before she realized it was mechanical. She lifted herself from the bed, naked, and walked towards the window to get a closer look at it. It cocked its head at her, squawked, and flew away into the Martian sunrise.  
  
"Vicious," she said, knowing this was important. She sat by him on the bed. He was awake before she'd moved her hand to his shoulder to rouse him. His eyes went from sharp to gentle upon seeing her. He reached up to take her into his arms and she let him, but managed to say, before being enclosed, "There was a bird watching us from the window. It just flew away. I think it was mechanical." He was out of bed before she even finished the sentence. He pulled her up after him and began to grab their clothing from the floor.  
  
"We need to leave, right now," Vicious whispered urgently, throwing her underwear towards her.  
  
Julia clicked into operation mode immediately, nodding and dressing efficiently. "Did you bring your bike?" she asked.  
  
"I walked," he replied.  
  
"We'll take the car to the Narwhal, then." Dressed, they both ran down a flight of stairs to the garage, where Julia's bright red convertible waiting like a piece of candy. A little part of her thrilled at the absolutely necessary speed she was about to indulge in. She started the garage door up before they seated themselves in the car. In the moment before they took off, she spared him a glance. "Why are we leaving?"  
  
Vicious's jaw was clenched. "He uses that bird as a remote spy and message carrier. I don't think he considers this a good year for me."  
  
Julia knew he was talking about his father and briefly thanked Ares that her car went from 0 to 170 in 1.5 seconds. Vicious lurched back in his seat as Julia, leaning forward in focus and manic enjoyment, darted among the cars, bikes, and assorted hovercrafts as though they were in some kind of an impossibly hard video game. "So you think he wants to kill me?" she shouted past the noise of the wind. Vicious didn't answer, but didn't need to either. "Let him try," she muttered, and the wind tore it from her mouth and hid it from Vicious.  
  
Vicious opened the landing to the hangar on the Narwhal once they were near the huge ship. It had only just touched the ground when Julia drove over it, still going 150, and stopped the car inches from Spike's Swordfish. Vicious hopped out of the car without even opening the door and rushed to the navigation room. The landing was only just closing.  
  
Julia went to wait for Vicious on the deck. She tried to place the plants in her limited botanical knowledge. It was twenty minutes before he entered, looking spent.  
  
"I had to run a security check on the Narwhal," he explained. He's beat me to the punch, before." He bit off a bitter grin. "Good thing we had a speedster on hand."  
  
"Hey," she said softly, running her hand down his arm, "I've got your back."  
  
"With my father out for your blood and everything," Vicious said. He looked miserable. "I should have known better than to even communicate with you, or anyone I didn't want to die."  
  
"Don't worry," she said. "I've handled worse. I handled the collapse of the Komodo branch, didn't I?"  
  
"I can't begin to-" he started to say, but she stopped his words with her mouth. She felt his lips pull back into a smile against her own. There was no more violence left in his response to her. They kissed for a long time. It was almost an apology. Mars was a vanishing circle in the deck's window. They undressed each other with the drunken freedom of people who had only just escaped death and wanted to escape, for a moment, the thought of facing more death. Julia couldn't stop running her legs against his smooth body, and Vicious's hands ran over her own as if he were sculpting her. They moved against each other like two tides running different courses. Vicious ran his lips down her throat and breasts, savoring the taste of her, building up the sensation in his loins slowly. All strategy went out of Julia's head and all her movements were instinct. They were two animals who shared the same brain. Vicious knew when to enter her, the rhythm she required, and they broke into orgasm at the same time. They fell into a sleepy tangle of limbs, watching the stars, and the tiny reminder of Mars's place in the sky.  
  
"Where are we going?" Julia asked.  
  
"To the end of the universe," Vicious answered, and the fear she felt at those words was delicious. They made love again in the room the color of life and death.  
  
* * *  
  
They were laying on the blood-colored pillows, naked and nearly asleep. They had been laying there for hours. Julia was half aware of a thin, annoying alarm, and then of Vicious gently untangling himself from her body and stretching.  
  
"The communicator," he mumbled.  
  
"It's probably Spike or Mao," Julia said sleepily, and suddenly realized that it most definitely wasn't. Vicious turned to her with about the same thought framed in his eyes.  
  
"How could I not have thought about it?" he whispered.  
  
Disturbed, Julia pulled on her clothes while Vicious slipped into a pair of pants. She followed him to the navigation room. She was praying to Ares that the conclusion wasn't as obvious as it seemed. She didn't ask if Vicious's father knew he and Spike were friends. She already knew. The bird.  
  
Once in the navigation room, Vicious motioned for her to stay out of the frame of the projector. He flipped on the audio-visual switch. His fathers face flickered into place on the screen. It was so much like Vicious's. Only terrifying and lost. Julia couldn't find the differences between the planes of their faces to explain it. There were only more age- worn tracks that deepened Mr. Dragon's face into an unsettling mask.  
  
He was breathing, hard. The type of breath one has while having sex or being tortured. "Don't hide her from me, boy. I have a bird's eye view of the two of you leaving. You know what's coming. Now you have to take your medicine."  
  
The view on the screen flickered again, was replaced by a different figure. One with a cloud of green hair bending as much as his arms would allow, having been tied with barbed wire to a cross.  
  
"Mr Spiegal," came Mr. Dragon's voice. "Don't you want to see what your friends look like after they've abandoned you to certain torture and death?"  
  
The head drifted up, slow with pain. It was bruised, but calm. There were other bruises lining his shirtless chest and arms. A strip of skin had been peeled from his chest. It was in the shape of a V. "Don't," Spike managed. "He'll kill us both." Julia turned to Vicious. He was shaking.  
  
Mr. Dragon bent in front of the camera. "Oh, you know I won't, Vicious." The insane, high-pitched giggle Julia had heard the other day started to burble from his lips, but he cut it off. "If you didn't know I kept my word so well I wouldn't be able to control you so well."  
  
"What's the choice?" Vicious whispered.  
  
His father's face darkened. A vein began to pop out from his forehead. "Oh, cut to the chase, will you? I'll have just as much fun with you as my father had with me, boy!" he barked. His face disappeared, once again revealing Spike's figure. A katana appeared from the edge of the screen, and very, very gently, probed out Spike's eye. Spike started to scream. Vicious looked like he would be sick. Julia walked over to him and kneeled down so she was eye level with him. She fixed him with her own resolute stare and squeezed his shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. It did the trick. Vicious jerked out of his state and into one of ready and focus. They could get Spike out of this. That much was clear.  
  
Mr Dragon's face reappeared on the screen. "The choice," he muttered. "The choice." He glared at them. "The girl has chosen to appear. Pretty," he said. "Pretty pretty. She will die quickly, Vicious. She will die quickly, or he will die slowly." His eyes flickered right, then left. "The Cathedral, at 20:00." Then the screen was blank.  
  
Something shiften in his face, and Vicious was calm, resolute. Julia was glad for his focus. She began to run stratagems through her head, like it was one of the fights she used to have in the ring. It was strategy, not her physical strength, that had made her the best fighter in Aurora Borealis. Vicious stood, began to walk through the door.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked. "We should get there as soon as possible. Sooner than he does."  
  
That broke him. Water started to run from the corners of his eyes, but his voice didn't break, as he said, "We're not going back."  
  
Julia understood. She'd misread him. She frowned, nodded, and before he knew it had knocked him unconscious with a remote control. It was a good thing there was an expert in navigations on hand. She settled in the navigator's seat with a sigh and programmed a speedy course back to Mars. 


	10. Reversals

Killing Mr. Dragon  
  
When he woke up Vicious found himself tied to a chair. Remembering what had happened he wondered where Julia had managed to find this chair. It was from the business room. He could see the cool light from the navigation board framing her figure as if it were a halo. Suddenly and violently, he hated himself and wondered how much she hated him. She was stronger than him. As if she'd heard his thoughts, she turned to him. Her eyes were sad.  
  
"I'm doing this for you more than anyone," she said. "You would have made a different decision if I didn't start this."  
  
"No I wouldn't have," he muttered. He braved a glance at her.  
  
"When I untie you, will you come with me and help me, or will I have to do this alone?" she asked.  
  
"He'll kill you," he wheezed.  
  
"Better than him haven't managed yet," she whispered back. "Are you going to argue with me, or plan?"  
  
He didn't answer. She left her seat, knelt down by him, waited for his eyes to meet hers. She kissed him, softly, and rested her cheek against his.  
  
"It fucks every thing up," she said, "when you care. When you think of saving your friend, instead of getting the job done, that friend is a lot more likely to die. When it's a lover." she reflected on the word, and drew back to look at him. "Don't think you don't mean as much to me as I do to you. We don't have to explain to each other what's between us. But we don't have to let anyone change it." She kissed his forehead on her way to standing up. "Okay?"  
  
Again, he didn't answer, but he knew he would be ready when the ship docked.  
  
* * *  
  
The cathedral was lined with gunmen. Julia could sense them even from outside. But they had anticipated this. Both Julia and Vicious wore gas masks. They knew his father probably anticipated this. Vicious carried two katanas. Julia carried two guns disguised as the heels of her boots. Vicious took out the fly-walkers, handed a pair to Julia. Slowly, and silently, they began to climb the outside of the cathedral wall. Every stained glass window held the hidden presence of the gunmen. Probability opened like a constellation in Julia's head. There would be five at the top window they planned on coming in through. She told this to Vicious, who nodded.  
  
There were five people at the window. Vicious took care of them silently. Julia marveled at his speed. Her stomach turned when she saw they were all wearing gas masks. The poison would be useless, then. Still, no one knew they were there, yet. Julia crawled towards the balcony, and through the bars she could make up the cross Vicious's father kept Spike on. She held out a dropper of acid and calculated the exact angle they needed to fall to dissolve the wire his wrists were wrapped it. She hoped he'd have the wherewithal not to let on he'd been freed. But then, having your eye poked out takes a toll on your wherewithal. She let the acid drop. Nothing seemed to shift out of balance downstairs. Behind her, Vicious was making his way through the lackeys, knowing poison would only make their presence known.  
  
Julia walked back to the window and climbed down as quickly as possible. Ten, fifteen, twenty. She calculated the amount of lackeys Vicious had made his way through. She walked around the cathedral and in through the front door. Vicious's father was standing at attention as though he knew she'd come at this exact moment. She could see Spike behind him, playing dead until she made a move.  
  
"So you came," he said. He was the most composed she'd seen him. She thought, for a moment, this was how Vicious would turn out if this was allowed to go on. "I suppose my son is taking down my guards at the top?" At this, there was gunfire. She hoped she hadn't left him too much to handle. Mr. Dragon gestured at the guard who had a gun to Spike's head. "Don't try anything." He walked towards her, picked up a strand of her hair and dropped it. He walked around her, looking for places she could hide a gun in her black catsuit. There weren't any. He made a big deal out of searching her anyway. There was still an occasional pop from a gun. Mr. Dragon was close to her, and whispered in her ear, "Of course, you will try something, so I better do this quick." Suddenly, there was a knife at her throat. She saw Spike cartwheel off the cross, so she took the gun from the heel of her boot and shot Vicious's father in the heart once, and then in the head. She dove for a corner, took the other gun from the heel of her boot, and tossed it to Spike. They started working their way up the levels. Julia wondered why anyone was even bothering to fight now. After all, this probably made Vicious the leader of the Syndicate. She heard Vicious groan, upstairs, directly after she'd heard a gunshot. Then speed took over her. She shot at men she was blind to, ran past gunmen and left them to Spike. It seemed like an hour before she found Vicious, but it was probably only a few minutes. He was stepping from a gunman he'd just decapitated. Blood stained his shoulder. He smiled when he saw her. They nodded at each other, and turned around to meet Spike.  
  
He was two levels down. Julia could make him out in a corner, exchanging shots with two gunmen. One of them turned to her and shot. The shot brushed the side of her stomach, tearing the leather and skin. She stumbled, the gunman smiled, and while he was indulging in his victory she shot him. Spike was above her, pulling her up.  
  
"Are you alright? Have you been shot?" he asked. Vicious was next to him, unconcerned and nearly proud. There were no more gunmen left.  
  
"La Mouette," Vicious said. "A swordfighting move. I've never seen it used in gunfighting. Very impressive." Julia couldn't stop the immediate smile that came to her face. She straightened up, and Spike stood back to survey them. His eye was a bloody scab, and his expression was unreadable. "So," said Spike, lighting a cigarette, "you two are a couple now, is that right?" If Julia wasn't mistaken he sounded almost bitter.  
  
* * * Control over the Red Dragon Syndicate went not to Vicious, but Mao Yenrai. There were always people trying to take power from the blood that ran the syndicate, and Mao made the case that since Vicious had made the move that killed his own father and sixty-three Red Dragon men, he should be disgraced, not rewarded, along with Spike and Julia. The elders accepted the proposition, but the practice of their decision was different than the one Mao proposed. In fact, Mao had not meant his proposal to be carried out exactly. Both he and the elders had known how Dragon men train their sons for years, and both parties had wanted the practice abolished. If anything, they were grateful to Vicious's play. Just the same, they feared him, and wanted to test him before they would give control of the Syndicate to him. Still, the decision rankled in Vicious's belly. He knew himself to be superior to Mao. He had the Dragon arrogance, and didn't like obeying authority. After all, his introduction to authority had been painful, to say the least.  
  
Julia was relieved that Vicious's position remained inferior, knowing there was more of a chance for them to escape. She didn't know how to tell him her desire to leave the syndicate, knowing she would need to expose her betrayal. She was also worried about what Vicious might do to Spike if he found out.  
  
Spike had proposed drinks at a local bar on the outskirts of town. It was a bar he'd frequented before he became mixed up in the Syndicate, or spying, however you wanted to term it. He was dressed down, in a leather jacket and jeans. Julia, knowing the area, wore an unremarkable short dress and jacket. Vicious was the only one who stuck out, in a long jacket and silken, white scarf.  
  
Spike was waiting for them when they walked in, arm and arm. Julia faltered at his stare, leveled accusingly at her. He looked as if he'd never even lost his eye. The only difference was that one was off by a shade. For a moment, she was unsettled by the difference between Spike and Vicious. Spike had been willing to die. Vicious had been willing to let him. But then, who could offer someone they love as a sacrifice? She shook her head, and they took seats across from him.  
  
Spike sucked on his cigarette. "You're just so cute together," he remarked drily.  
  
Julia looked at Vicious. He was smirking.  
  
"First round's on me," Spike said. "You did save my life." Again, his view favored Julia. He nodded at her, and she wondered what he meant by it. He stood, returned shortly with two glasses of Martian beer and a shot of Martian vodka. They took their glasses. "A toast," said Spike.  
  
"To what?" Vicious asked.  
  
Spike was at a loss. Then he said, "Fucked up shit."  
  
Vicious and Julia grinned. They lifted their glasses, which clinked together. Then drank them, and began to talk as if it had always been the three of them, on the inside and the outside of whatever it was they were in. Spike and Vicious played pool against each other. Julia watched, noting the easy camaraderie that she hadn't seen either of them share with anyone else. Vicious won. Spike blamed his eye, but Julia thought he'd let Vicious win. Then Vicious went to the back to relieve himself and Spike came to her table, standing and looking down at her.  
  
"I've got to hand it to you," he said. "You're not half bad." He realized it wasn't as conciliatory as he'd meant it to be. "I mean that. You saved my life." He sipped his beer experimentally. "But. I don't know what the fuck you're doing with Vicious. I mean, have you thought about-"  
  
"Not now," said Julia. "This is something we should talk about later."  
  
Spike nodded, and put his glass down on the table so hard the beer it was nearly emptied of sloshed over the sides. Just then, Vicious returned. They ordered another round, and another, until all of them had forgotten their most pressing concerns. The bartender had to kick them out, and when they left, they were laughing. It was raining. Vicious grabbed a newspaper and held it over Julia's head. He pulled her to him and kissed her cheek. She pulled away, giggling, and ran into Spike. Surprised, he nearly sat down on the cement. He saved himself from the fall and ran after her, grinning as she eluded him and then escaped him by encircling her arms around Vicious's waist. Vicious leaned his head towards her, and Spike thought of how odd it was for Vicious to demonstrate that kind of gentleness, without any awkwardness. He took out a cigarette, lit it, and realized that whatever was between them, was real, was a relief to them. He wouldn't have minded saying, if anyone had asked him, that he was a little bit jealous.  
  
Julia returned to her house that night. She's been given a solo mission early the next day, while Vicious and Spike had time to recover from their respective rooms. So Vicious was alone in his room when the bird came. A chill went down his spine seeing it. He was sure it was a bomb, or would emit poison, but then it cocked its head, opened its mouth, and burped out a holographic recording of his father. He was much younger. He looked saner. He looked like Vicious.  
  
"Vicious," he said. "All I will ever want from you is to kill me. I never killed my own father, and for that I didn't have the chance to become a man. But, if you're hearing this recording, you've killed me. Thank you. The bird is yours. You know what it can do." The holographic image was preoccupied with its feel, and its voice was gravelly when it said, "I love you, son. But this life always turns love into something horrible." 


	11. Closings and Openings

All characters belong to Bandai and Sunrise Inc.  
  
Sorry I been gone so long, I just didn't have access to a computer. But I'm back!  
  
1  
  
Spike was waiting for her in his room when Julia returned from her mission. She'd just taken out a former Syndicate member who'd ran off with a cachet of information to Delaware's developing Special Ops office. She'd been torn about whether to let him go or kill him and in the end turned him over to Delaware, who took the information and then promptly erased the member's memory with a neural implant. She was sweaty, but satisfied, and wanted nothing more than to exchange her catsuit for a robe. When she saw Spike, she let out an exasperated sigh.  
  
"Spike," she groaned, "Why are you here?"  
  
Spike put out his cigarette. He laced his fingers together and cracked them against his knees. For all the world he looked like a father about to discipline a child. "Because," he said, "I think we should have a talk."  
  
Julia ignored him and headed to the shower, starting to unzip her suit once her back was turned. "It doesn't really have anything to do with you."  
  
"What?"  
  
Julia closed the door and shouted through it, "Vicious!"  
  
Spike heard the shower turn on and decided to wait for her to come out. Luckily, she showered quickly, emerging in a white bathrobe.  
  
"Why are you still here?" she asked.  
  
Spike sighed. "Listen. The day is coming, soon, when we're expected to take out the Red Dragon Syndicate. It will be harder than it was with the Komodo Syndicate. You know the White Tiger Syndicate will probably jump to help. There are a lot of people we can jail instead of killing, and Vicious is one of them." Julia's lips narrowed at this. "I don't know what you're doing with him, but if you care about him, you might not want to betray him as badly as you're going to." Seeing her face he continued, "Or are you planning on turning your back on what you're being paid to do?"  
  
She thought for a minute, and then decided she couldn't trust him. "What are you planning to do, Spike? Kill him or turn him in?"  
  
"I don't really know yet. It depends on how things happen."  
  
"You'll have to kill him if Yenrai turns the Syndicate over to Vicious."  
  
"He won't do that for a while."  
  
"So when are we going to do this, Spike? When is soon?"  
  
His eyes narrowed. "Are you going to answer my question?"  
  
Slowly, she started to shake her head. "Maybe once I've got it sorted out in my head I'll try to give you an answer."  
  
Spike stood up, angry. "Goddamn, woman, did you just fall into this? Did you even think-" She put a hand to his mouth.  
  
"Spike," she said. "You were willing to die for Vicious."  
  
She took her hand away and he smiled a little. "Who says it was Vicious I was willing to die for?"  
  
Startled, Julia took a step back. "Don't say that."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Fuck you, Spike. Just tell me if you're his friend or not."  
  
"Yeah," he said, and put his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I am."  
  
"Okay, then. I'm his lover. And as far as I know, we both go around killing people that maybe don't deserve to die. But we also give information about the Syndicate to Harley and Delaware. So to me, that means we haven't exactly decided whose side we're on yet." She looked for his reaction. It was subtle, but it made her want to go on. "Sun-tzu said spies had to be paid well because they could be bought as counter-spies. Because spies don't have any values any more. In the end, they just work for themselves. And the people they care about."  
  
It was a long, uncomfortable moment, before Spike said anything. "Are you saying-but you could just be saying it to- to test me or something. I don't know you, Julia. I have no idea who you are."  
  
"Then don't trust me," she said. "It's never a good idea to trust anything."  
  
Spike nodded. "Guess we'll just play this one by ear, huh?" he said. Julia nodded. Then he left. She pressed a thumb to her lips and decided to be troubled later.  
  
2  
  
The White Tigers sat in the place of air. They were nine of the blood. Marriages weren't permitted in the room, only those born of Tiger blood. The Blue Sharks sat in the place of water. There were eleven of the blood there. The twelfth, the youngest son of the youngest generation, had joined the Belt asteroid wars. The Black Adders sat in the place of earth. Like the Komodos, they were a matriarchy. Of the seven that sat there, two were men. The Komodo place, metal, was vacant. Vicious was the only one in the place of the Red Dragons, fire. He had come to these meetings since he was sixteen, the year his father had killed his sister in front of him. He knew the Dragons were the most feared among the families, and knew he would have to live up to the name his father had given him in order to settle what had been unbalanced. His reputation was formidable within his own syndicate, it was true, but among the families he was second to his father. Everyone knew his hadn't been the deadly shot. He sensed the imbalance. He knew the rules. His father's bird sat on his shoulder. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn't afraid. All he had to do was close his eyes and find the refuge of his memory of the girl who'd killed his father, and he smiled at how easy it was to face this thing.  
  
The grandfather of the White Tigers spoke first. "You see how empty this room is becoming."  
  
Vicious didn't respond. The smile was still on his face.  
  
Alsha of the Black Adders spoke next. The Adders were as black as their name. Her skin was so dark it shone blue in the right light, and it was hard to pinpoint, from a distance, exactly where her skin stopped and her hair began. Her three daughters looked the same. Only her stature marked her maturity. She was one of the most feared assassins in this galaxy. She hid her deadliness in diplomacy. "We appreciate the alacrity with which you dispatched those responsible for the fall of the Komodo syndicate."  
  
Alcibiades of the Blue Sharks was the last to speak. He was an orator, a politician. It was natural his would be the words that outlined what had come to pass between the families. "The metal is no more, and the fire is nearly out. The balance that the families have achieved in unity has dissolved with the missing piece. We have denied it for a time, but your actions have brought this truth to an attention we cannot dismiss. You know the rules, Vicious. The families are permitted everything but the murder of one another."  
  
Vicious smiled as he interrupted. "My sister." Whose death had at long last been avenged by the woman who was his deadly angel.  
  
"She was not of the blood," Alcibiades said brusquely. "She was born of your mother's mistress. Neither was you mother of the blood. Will you bring up the deaths of your friends and argue they were family too? No. Everything is permitted except one rule. That is the law at the highest echelon. Everything but that which threatens the echelon. We help all those of the blood, but for tensions which arise between blood, it is the blood alone who must stand against it. The blood must be strong. You were weak.  
  
This is not all," Alcibiades continued. "The Illuminati aren't the only threat to us. A police force is attempting to resurrect. They are now calling themselves the ISSP and they number as many as all those in the Syndicates. Centralized forces are easy to attack. We have no choice but to decentralize. Perhaps your actions came at an opportune time. From now on, all the families are out for themselves."  
  
Vicious stood. "You say everything is permitted except for what threatens the highest echelon. If this were true you would not have permitted the madness of my family. For how many generations did you watch fathers drive their sons to an insanity they called strength? Did you do nothing out of fear or because you were waiting for the breaking point which would allow your personal ambition to take the place of solidarity? Well, now I have all the room in the world for my own ambition, and you have not considered the implications of that. I have never cared for the families or the syndicates. I care nothing about your survival, or the survival of my own syndicate. Perhaps if you were each to go your own way you might avoid all that threatens you. You know there's more than the ISSP. There are independent agents, and more will come, because they smell the blood of this break. And I will make you bleed worse. You allowed the insanity that nearly came to me. Don't thank your gods that it didn't come. You mistook the insanity of my fathers for strength. You will know strength when I come to you, because I have it now. You will pay for what you permitted, and what you did not permit, and the price I have estimated is war." He was still smiling. He looked back at the stares that had hardened at his speech. No one would kill him. That was the funny part. This was a sanctuary, and everyone was still so brainwashed they would adhere to the rules that would be the death of them. He'd never been brainwashed, only constrained. It would still take a lot for them to even attempt to kill him. They would only try to weaken the syndicate. They wouldn't achieve even that, though. He wasn't his father's son for nothing.  
  
As he left the room, his gait was easy and graceful.  
  
3.  
  
Lin and Shin stood on either side of Corso, the new candidate they had chosen for the Red Dragons. He had soft, curly blonde hair, limpid eyes, and girl's lips. He was also a better shot than either Julia or Spike, and unequaled so far in hand to hand combat. He'd just returned from the Asteroid Belt wars, where he had been a celebrated sharpshooter.  
  
Mao Yenrai spoke for the elders. "Your superiors and your planet wished you to stay on, but you left when your term was up. Why?"  
  
"They don't pay a soldier much, honestly sir," Corso replied. "You see veterans walking around the same as they were before the war or poorer. Doesn't seem much point risking your neck for nothing."  
  
"You don't feel an allegiance to your planet?"  
  
"Of course I do, sir," Corso grinned. "I served my duty, didn't I?"  
  
Mao Yenrai nodded. "I trust Lin and Shin have informed you of the way in which we determine a candidate's application?"  
  
Corso nodded, a lock of hair falling over his eye, and a smile split his face. 4.  
  
Vicious didn't see Spike as he went into Julia's building. Spike watched him go in, then leaned against a televideo booth, lit a cigarette, and stared up at Julia's window. Moments later he saw Vicious come in. She came into view from the right. He could see from her silhouette that she was naked. It was funny the way the two came together when no one was looking, as if they were magnets of opposite charges. They immediately went for each other, Vicious cradling her chin and drawing her closer with a caress, as she ran a hand through his hair. They looked at each other for such a long time, their eyes kissing before their lips bothered to meet. He didn't know why he wanted to see what they were like when no one else was watching. It was like they were a puzzle he was piecing together, or a part of the puzzle that Julia was. Most people you at least thought you had figured out. From the beginning Julia was a mystery. He'd never met a woman like that before. They were usually such open books, talking and revealing themselves without even knowing it, trying to wear mystery like it was a dress, always exchanging it for ego. Julia never said anything he was sure about. He'd only met one other person as unreadable as her, and it was Vicious. He broke his gaze and started to walk away. Yeah, they made a funny kind of sense together. He just wished they didn't. 


	12. A Night at the Arena

All character and thematic elements belong to Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise, Inc.  
  
All right, this one, after a long slumber, is a doozy of a comeback. I got a bunch of the peripheral characters, except for Corso, who's my invention, and of course, loveable Ayumo. Enjoy, kids. And review or be damned to another long slumber.  
  
Endgame 13  
  
"Everybody ready for fight night?" Spike asked in a haze of muttering smoke. He was dressed up, for Spike, who never did completely relinquish his Martian gutterpunk look. He had on a black trenchcoat, a suit underneath, and a scarf. His right-hand glove had all the smoking fingers cut out, though. Vicious had a beige overcoat and a gray suit. Julia was still in her bathroom. For a moment, Spike wondered why they always ended up at Julia's, whether it was after a mission or before they went out. Then he growled, under his breath, "Women," while staring at the bathroom door.  
  
"Yeah," Vicious drawled. He was walking a coin down his hand. "Aren't they wonderful?"  
  
"You talking about me?" Julia said, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. "You better not be talking about me." Vicious smiled at her. She was wearing an indigo dress with a slit that ran high enough for him to be sure she'd foregone the underwear that night.  
  
Spike whistled rudely and Julia flipped him off. Vicious pulled her coat from the rack and held it for her to slip on. She frowned a little, then slipped her arms into the waiting coat. Vicious let his arms rest around her for a moment and whispered into her ear, "You look good." She turned around and restrained the urge to kiss him. He cupped her chin in his hand and brushed his thumb across her lower lip. Julia closed her eyes, forgetting Spike momentarily, until he started to make gagging noises.  
  
"Oh, that's it," she huffed. "We need to get him a woman."  
  
"Yeah, and while we're at it we should get Vicious one too," he replied drily. Julia pinched him. "Ow," Spike complained.  
  
"Jesus," Vicious said and opened the door. "Can we go before you start giving each other noogies?"  
  
The fight was being held at the Ares Stadium. It consisted a coliseum surrounding a circular patch of white sand where the contestants always fought. The headliner fight was between Ayumo, an expert in hand-to-hand combat, and Corso, a recruit recommended by Shin and Lin, brothers who Spike and Vicious knew but Julia didn't. Julia felt a bit snubbed for not being invited to fight. After all, she'd started off in hand-to-hand combat and she had so little of it these days. But Vicious said the recruit deserved a fighting chance, which made her smile.  
  
The opening act was a Liksa fight. A Liksa was a liquid technology with holographic artificial consciousness, that had originated in Mars. As soon as you cut it apart, you had two separate animals. The more you divided it, the more there were. It had happened so often that Liksa now ran on the streets as common as dogs. The only way to destroy it was to cut it into so many pieces that they no longer had enough intelligence to fight. The only way to have a finite fight between two Liksas was to get some really small strays and starve them of electricity, which was their nourishment and also their intelligence. If one of the technological beasts managed to siphon off enough of the other's energy, or absorb enough parts of the other, it would eventually grow bright enough to enclose it, become a sieve like form, and squeeze it into death by a thousand pieces.  
  
Liksa fights bored Julia. Her eyes glazed almost immediately. It was such a predictable fight, so mathematical and boring. There was no soul to it. It took her a moment to notice Spike's hand waving in front of her face.  
  
"Mars to Julia," he was saying.  
  
She shook her head. "What? Did something interesting happen?" She looked over at Vicious, who was watching the Liksa intently.  
  
"You looked hypnotized," he said.  
  
"Yeah, by boredom," she replied.  
  
"Liksa fights are for nerds," he agreed.  
  
She gestured to Vicious. "How can he like this?" she whispered into his ear.  
  
"He likes the inevitable domination of power," Spike whispered back. "Let's get a drink, huh?"  
  
They disembarked from their place in the balcony. Julia nodded at Mao as she passed him. Vicious didn't even notice them leave.  
  
Shin was standing by the bar and Spike changed his course through the crowd. Julia asked him under his breath what he wanted to drink and walked on once he told her. He stopped and appraised Shin. He was one of the young hotshots who refused to tuck in his clothes or conform to the superficial habits of Red Dragon men. It marked him as outside of the powerful circle, which was as good as often as it was not.  
  
"Been a long time," Spike drawled, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. "How did the recruiting session go?"  
  
"We only got one good one. You wouldn't guess it to look at him, but he's been heavily decorated after just one year in warfare." Shin gestured past him and Spike turned to see an overgrown boy with hair not unlike Julia's and lips so red he could mark their color from across the room. He was standing on a pedastle next to Ayumo, serenely staring forward.  
  
"You can never tell by the body," Spike said.  
  
"True enough." Shin pulled out his own cigarette and lit it. "So me and Lin take off for a couple months and you and Vicious go take down an empire?"  
  
"It's Vicious's empire anyway," Spike replied.  
  
"Don't let Mao hear you say that," Shin grinned. He tried to pull his hair behind one ear but it fell messily over his forehead. "You know he doesn't trust Vicious."  
  
"You never did either," Spike said without meeting Shin's eyes.  
  
"Would you want your kid brother idolizing someone like that?" Shin countered. "Vicious is alright, I just don't want Lin imitating his tactics. It's bound to get him killed."  
  
Spike nodded. "I didn't have anything to do with killing Vicious's father anyway. That was Julia."  
  
Shin whistled and turned around to see where Julia had gone. "Yeah, Julia. Only woman who can make you fall in love with her by kicking your ass."  
  
"Yeah, you'd know," Spike said, wondering how badly Shin had been beaten by her when they'd fought. He saw the gold spill of hair in the crowd marking her return. She handed Spike a drink and fixed her eyes somewhere past him, sipping her drink and ignoring Shin.  
  
"Julia, you remember Shin-"  
  
"It's always red," she muttered.  
  
Spike turned to see where she was looking. The twin glint of red glass showed a pair of eye-tasers somewhere on the second level. They would shoot an invisible laser through wherever the eyes focused.  
  
"They're aimed at the recruit," she said.  
  
Shin had caught the eye-taser's by now as well. "What should we do?"  
  
"I'll go to the second floor," Julia said. "It's near the bathrooom, so it won't be strange." Spike felt the slightest movement in his jacket pocket as Julia reached inside I for his lighter. He thought she wouldn't make a bad pickpocket, as he had once been. Julia turned to him. "I'll light this three times when I've got him in sight."  
  
"Then we both shoot," Spike finished, and she nodded with a slight smile quirking her lips.  
  
"A regular mind reader," she said, and disappeared into the crowd.  
  
Spike turned to Shin. "Tell me when she reaches the second floor," he instructed. "It'll look more natural for you to be looking up there."  
  
Lin agreed and took a drag from his cigarette. "Is it true what they say?"  
  
"I don't know. What do they say?"  
  
"They say she's Vicious's woman."  
  
Spike didn't answer, but it was enough for Shin.  
  
"She's got the right eyes for it," Shin said. "Cold as steel." After a moment he said, "She's there," and Spike turned to look. The light came. Once, twice, a third, and he drew his gun, firing a shot at the perfect angle. Another shot came from the second level, and he knew Julia was making sure the would-be assassin was dead. The crowd became a tumult, and he heard a few shrieks coming from the women that had been invited.  
  
"Get Mao," Spike said, and ran against the flow of the crowd to the second floor. By the time he wrestled his way to the top the level was nearly empty. Julia was standing over the assassin, her back turned to him. She had a drink in one hand and a gun in the other. As Spike drew closer he noticed a disabling shot had disengaged the eye-taser.  
  
"He was one of us," Julia said, and Spike noticed the uniform.  
  
"Why'd you give me the signal to shoot, then? He should have been questioned."  
  
"Because when he saw me he said I was next. He said he knew, and then I gave the signal to shoot."  
  
"He knew?"  
  
"Yes," she said, and turned to Spike. Her face was resolute. "He's an intelligence man. Might be he's not the only one who knows, and I'm not the only one he knows about. I'm going to tell Vicious tonight. I won't tell him about you but he might know soon. You should be ready."  
  
"Who the hell are you to make a decision like that?"  
  
"I'm free."  
  
She started to walk past Spike and he grabbed her arm. "You're a lot of things Julia, but you're sure as hell not free. You think Vicious is going to let you do as you please? Did you think you two would just run off together and live happily ever after?"  
  
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I was thinking just that."  
  
"You two always seem to be in the middle of these sorts of things," Mao said from behind them.  
  
Julia turned to him. "You should be thankful. No one else seems to notice when the guy next to them is trying to assassinate somebody."  
  
"And who was he trying to assassinate?" Mao asked.  
  
Julia pointed to Corso downstairs, who remained oblivious to the circumstances. "That boy."  
  
Mao bent to the crumpled figure and took off the ruined eye-tazer goggles. "And how should we know?" he asked, "With these broken and unable to provide a recording of this man's sight. He was one of ours. Why is he dead?"  
  
"He was aiming for you," Julia said. "You had just come out to the bar when I saw him. I removed the threat as quickly as possible. I disengaged the tasers so he wouldn't use them."  
  
"If it's worth anything, Mao, I saw the same thing."  
  
Mao looked to Spike. Spike had been Mao's recruit, five years ago, when Spike had graduated from Martian punk to small-time drug and fence operator to computer criminal. He'd been in for two years when he was recruited by the ISSP. He'd started working with Vicious three months later. Mao trusted Spike, and even if he couldn't he knew he could read the boy. Mao decided to investigate in case Spike was covering. "I'll take it from here," he said.  
  
"Better look out, Mao. Looks like Vicious has his own faction," Julia said breezily.  
  
Mao straightened as his face clouded. "You better hope these tactics of yours don't get you in trouble, Julia. Don't let Vicious rub off on you. He has immunity. You do not."  
  
"Never said he gave his faction the go-ahead."  
  
"You know a lot about Vicious in a short time, do you? I know Vicious too. I know he doesn't trust anyone. And I know he would betray anyone for his own good."  
  
The line of Julia's mouth went soft. She didn't answer.  
  
"You should go back to your seats. The fight's starting soon," Mao said. He looked tired.  
  
Julia glided off into the crowd. She thought of how Vicious wouldn't have gone back for Spike and wondered if he'd go back for her. Maybe he was a coward. You could never tell these things about people. Some of the intelligence unit were already filtering up the stairs, which had been roped off. The crowd had congealed from the lost space, and still had an afterglow of hysteria. Julia managed to squeeze through the empty bits between people expertly. Spike pushed them away and angled for the wall, pulling Julia with him. She looked up at him questioningly. When he reached the door, he pushed Julia through the opening and followed her into the room. It was lit by a blue glow from the computer switchboard for the stadium. It was big enough to for three engineers in tight quarters.  
  
"What was that?" Spike demanded.  
  
"Throwing Mao off my trail. If he thinks I'm siding with Vicious to overthrow him, he's not thinking I'm an ISSP spy."  
  
"And what about me? Mao trusts me. I like him."  
  
"So?" Julia said. "Listen. Both you and Vicious are aimed at the dissolution of the Syndicates, in one way or another. It can be done by both sides. If we do it your way, people like Mao go to jail. If we do it Vicious's way, people like Mao will die. So we have to do it a new way."  
  
"Has Vicious said anything about killing Mao?"  
  
"No," Julia replied. "But does a king say anything about the knights he considers expendable?"  
  
"Christ, I need a cigarette," Spike said, running his hand through his hair.  
  
Julia took out both a pack and a light. She'd apparently taken both when rifling through his pocket. She stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, deposited the contents in his pocket, and left Spike in the blue glow of the technical room. Neither ever noticed the bird that sat in a crevice between the equipment and the wall.  
  
Spike smoked three cigarettes before going to his seat. Mao hadn't returned to his seat, and neither Julia nor Vicious looked at him as he entered. He sat beside them and looked out onto the white sand on the arena.  
  
Shin and Lin were sitting in the front row on the other end of the stadium. Below them was their recruit, the boyish, pretty Corso. Ayumo, dark and heavy, waited for the bell on the other side. When the bell sounded Corso leapt at Ayumu with a catlike contortion. If you were looking closely, which Spike's false eye could do, you could see a bored, disconnected look in Corso's face. He collapsed on Ayomo, knocking him over, and inserted his finger in the dark fighter's mouth. Before Ayumu could bit down on it, Corso had ripped his finger through Ayomo's cheek, splitting it into two flaps. He stood to kick Ayumo's head at an angle that would break his spine, but the other fighter recovered his wits and sprang up to counter Corso. The blond boy made some bored, lithe swipes and then hung back, arms suspended by his sides, his lips curling up. Ayumo leapt forward and lunged at Corso, who easily stepped aside. Ayumo spun and tried a series of wide punches that Corso literally brushed aside with a quick flick of his hands. This kid had it. He didn't need strength. There's always more strength on the defensive side. The offense has to change that strength, find its emptiness and use it to divide. Ayumo caught on that he was tiring himself out and hung back, blood coursing down his neck. He didn't seem to be the worse for it. Spike wondered at the lack of scars on Julia. A rock worn smooth by the rain. Corso squatted in what looked like the start of a leap. Ayumo flinched and Corse laughed, then raised himself upright again and stepped back. It was a psychological move. Ayumo immedietely stepped forward. Then Corso sprang forward. The two opposite propulsions made for a big crash, but Corso's had more energy. They slid over the sand into a wall. Before Ayumo could move, Corso stood back and kicked the soft part underneath the man's chin against the wall. It made a foot-sized dent towards the crown. Although from the front Ayumo looked asleep, his organs had been pulverized. A watery red solution ran out of his eyes. Corso face the crowd and raised his arms slowly. He had passed. He was a Red Dragon. 


	13. Confessions

Endgame 13  
  
There was a rose in a vase on Vicious's desk in the bedroom of his Martian loft. It had been recently cut, and dew was suspended from its flesh, showing tiny distorted reflections from around the room.  
  
There would be roses, and guns, and there was a swirl of gold hair and a falling body. She saw the boy's face, the one who had only just joined. Corso. Julia told herself it was just a vision.  
  
Julia sat on Vicious's bed, her shoeless feet tucked behind her. Vicious was reviewing paperwork for the day. Julia was staring at the rose. Ever since the fight he had been aloof, as though he needed distance to look at her. She kept seeing him peer at her from a distance. She hardly talked to him until they had come to his apartment. He'd poured her a glass of wine, looking over the bottle at her like he was trying to appraise her. He'd taken her chin between his forefinger and thumb and tilted her face towards him and said, "You're so beautiful. You're like a statue." Then he left her in his room. Julia didn't like wine. The full cup sat opposite to the rose. Julia hated roses more than she hated wine. She was beginning to hate everything with the hue of red in it. She had a fleeting image of Spike's false eye. Even his real one had a red undercurrent. Red meant trouble, she was sure of that.  
  
She became aware of Vicious's frame in the door. She hadn't heard him come. She hadn't sensed his presence. Something was off-balance. She turned to him. He was in loose pants, but his bare skin looked threatening rather than unprotected. Julia looked at her knees and smiled ruefully. "It's all or nothing." She had a knife in case this didn't work out.  
  
Vicious stood before her. Her head came up to his stomach. She wasn't going to say this looking up to him. She was going to look him in the eye. She stood. "Vicious." His eyes were unreadable. She hoped she'd get the translation soon. There was a long pause. Vicious was waiting. "I left the door open for the ISSP to come in and get rid of the Komodo organization. I've been providing them with information about the Red Dragon Syndicate. I'm a spy."  
  
Vicious smiled. His eyes were still unreadable. "I know."  
  
His eyes locked on hers. Julia's eyes tilted upwards as she ran through the possible scenarios. The intelligence man she'd killed must have told him. Vicious must know why he wanted Corso dead. Vicious caught the movement, and then her eyes returned to his. "We can still." She didn't finish. She couldn't ask him to cater to her idea before he had even judged her.  
  
Vicious tilted his head and brushed his fingers across his face. "So, you love me enough to tell me the truth? Is that what I'm supposed to believe?"  
  
"I'm a free agent, Vicious," Julia replied. "My agenda changed."  
  
"You have agenda, Julia?" He cradled her face in his spider-like hand and brought it closer to his. Then how can I tell you're telling me the truth?" He brought her face closer. They were exchanging breath. "I suppose I should be able to tell by your eyes." He stared at her from a distance no more than centimeters long.  
  
She grasped his hand with her own and glared back.  
  
"Tell me, Julia," he whispered. "Tell me everything."  
  
"What do you mean?" she asked. Her other hand started to go for her knife, but Vicious caught it and pinned it against the wall. His body was pressed against hers.  
  
"Who else is working with you?"  
  
Julia's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"Are you saying you work alone? I wouldn't want to say I was working alone if I were you, Julia. Not if you aren't."  
  
Fuck it, she thought. "Vicious. I work alone." She'd misjudged him from the start. She wouldn't think about leaving him until she was gone, wait until she was far away for the pain. She'd leave as soon as possible, and warn Spike on his way before she left.  
  
All the tension melted from Vicious's face, and he backed away. "You chose him. You chose him over me. You're covering for that bastard!"  
  
"Who, Vicious?" Julia asked brazenly. "What bastard?" They both knew she knew perfectly well who it was.  
  
He smacked her. She didn't make a sound, just closed her eyes and opened them when he was done. "Who the fuck are you? You think you're lord of all things? I don't revolve around anyone, Vicious, and I won't revolve around you. I'm not gonna ignore other people's needs in order to pass some goddamn test of yours. So you knew the whole time he was a spy. He nearly got killed for you. He lost an eye for you. And you wouldn't even go back for him. So who fucking betrayed who here? It's all relative."  
  
Vicious was staring at her from a face bowed with anger. She could feel it coming from him like fire. Like a furnace you can warm your hands against. He wrapped his hand around her head and pulled her into a rough kiss. His hands fixed on her shoulder and enclosed around the straps of her dress. Julia pressed her hands against his body, and they fought their way down to his hips and hooked around the rim of his pants. Vicious brought his hands under her legs and lifted her over to where his bed was. He dropped her onto his bed and she rose immediately into his kiss. They twined into each other, braiding their skin against each other like a rope, until they were completely entangled. Their passions fought to exhaustion in their bodies, and when they were done there was nothing left to say about anything.  
  
They both stared at the freshly-cut rose on Vicious's desk. 


	14. Long Way Down From Here

So, this is the third time I've written this chapter, goddammit. First it got encrypted. Then someone saved a paper over my file. This is why it's been so long, in case you're wondering. Here it is, without further ado.  
  
Chapter 14  
  
Long Way Down From Here  
  
Spike rolled over groggily into the business end of a sword. Before he even managed to crack open his eyes he'd gotten his gun out from under his pillow and had it pointed at Vicious.  
  
"Morning," Spike said. Vicious didn't reply. "What's up, Vicious? You got something you want to say?"  
  
"What is Julia to you?" Vicious's voice was low and gravelly.  
  
Spike frowned. "That wasn't what I expected."  
  
"How can protecting you be more important to her than telling the truth to me?"  
  
Spike let out a breath. "She told you?"  
  
"She didn't," Vicious said. "I knew you were a spy, and she knew I knew, and she still wouldn't admit it."  
  
"What did you do to her?"  
  
Vicious smirked. "Don't worry Spike. I just fucked her silly."  
  
Spike wondered if he could pull the trigger before Vicious could pry out a vital vein. But it was well known that Vicious's sword was as fast as a bullet. "So."  
  
"So."  
  
"Maybe you should take out my other eye. That would be appropriate. One by the father, one by the son."  
  
Vicious drew back. "I'm not my father!" Spike took advantage of Vicious's distraction to shoot the sword out of his hand. Vicious looked at his hand, pupils dilating.  
  
"You should take care, then. It's easy to get lost."  
  
Vicious looked up at Spike. He looked for all the world like a little boy. "She lied to me. How can I trust her now?"  
  
Spike shook his head. "I don't know. You make a choice."  
  
"How do I trust either of you?"  
  
"You could always kill us," Spike pointed out.  
  
Vicious shook his head. "If only it were all over."  
  
"It could be over," Spike said. "Julia would help you. She's the same as you, really."  
  
Vicious picked up his sword and sheathed it. "What about you, Spike?"  
  
* * *  
  
Buildings and people streamed into a blur in Julia's peripheral vision, while her windshield was an impressionist painting through the screen of raindrops. Driving this fast, she couldn't think. Everything here was instinct. Some kind of technological prescience helped her avoid stop signs and red lights. She'd only been on Mars a matter of months but she already knew all the quickest routes. This one was out of town. She only just dimly realized this. Maybe she'd just go, out of town, to the Barracuda, to the stars. If she left she had as many opportunities as there were stars. If she left this bad dream would be over. Life could be completely different.  
  
All the real dreams, the best ones, are the ones you know won't come true.  
  
She knew she and Vicious were like one of those knots that you could never undo. The more you tried to unravel it, the tighter it became. When she thought of him she knew he'd be in her life until the end. She knew he wouldn't let go, even if she could.  
  
Instinct pressed her foot to the brake as she saw someone step onto the street. It was a good thing she'd just gotten new linings. Julia sighed. It was Spike. He put his cigarette out and sidled over to her side of the car, leaning on the frame of her door.  
  
"Crazy women drivers," he mocked. A car stopped behind Julia's car and started honking.  
  
"Want to talk about it in the car?"  
  
"Much as it risks my life to do it," Spike replied with a shrug, and slowly ambled to the other side. He vaulted in without opening the door, and Julia peeled out of pition with a screech. "Troubled?" Spike asked.  
  
"You know me so well already."  
  
"Well, I also had a bit of a talk with Vicious."  
  
"Oh," Julia groaned. "I'm sorry, Spike. I meant to warn you but I knew he wouldn't harm you."  
  
"No, he just threatened me at swordpoint." Spike drew another cigarette out of his pack. "Seems to think you and me got a thing."  
  
Julia raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"  
  
"I don't mean anything by it," he reassured her. "But why in the world didn't you tell him about me when it was obvious he already knew?"  
  
She didn't exactly know the answer to that one. "Because I won't play games. Besides, comrades come before anything."  
  
"Even love?"  
  
Julia shrugged. "If it weren't that way, they wouldn't have allowed women into the Komodo syndicate." She was silent. Spike turned to the blur of scenery. "Why are you here, Spike?"  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"Why are you involved in this? Me I understand. Vicious I understand. Ambition I understand. Were you in the ISSP first?"  
  
"No," Spike chuckled. "I was arrested by the ISSP."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Gun running. You know the Te Resistance on Saturn? I've always been sympathetic to guerrillas."  
  
Julia smiled. "Yeah. You get much money?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. They're funded by the Saturnite Senate."  
  
"Huh." Julia pulled onto a rotary and started to head back into town. "You headed anywhere?"  
  
"Yeah," said Spike. "I'm meeting Shin and Lin and Corso at a Harry's. Guy's night out."  
  
"Don't worry," said Julia. "I won't infringe. Is Vicious going?"  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"It's going to take a lot of time, isn't it?"  
  
Spike looked at her. "It might take more than time," he said.  
  
* * *  
  
The boys were already at the table by the time Spike got there. Corso was in between the two brothers, indistinguishable except that Shin's had was messy while Lin's was slicked back. Spike took a seat next to the brothers.  
  
"Where's Vicious?" Lin asked. "I thought he was coming with you."  
  
"I think he's busy tonight," Spike replied uncomfortably, drawing out his pack so he would have something to do. It was empty.  
  
Shin extended a cigarette. "I swear, Spike, you didn't get nursed enough as a child."  
  
"Some things never change," Spike replied, grinning. A small Indian waitress came by their table to take their order. Spike and Shin nodded. It was time to bring out the old drinking game.  
  
"Bourbon, straight up, for all of us. And keep it coming." Shin extended a large bill with his two forefingers and the waitress giggled appropriately. Corso watched her as she retreated.  
  
"The women aren't bad, here on Mars."  
  
"I prefer blondes," Lin said.  
  
"Only when he's not lusting after the silver-haired ones," Shin joked.  
  
"I wouldn't talk if I were you," Lin said with a significant look.  
  
Spike snorted. "Where's the liquor? Maybe you two will stop bickering when you're soused."  
  
"Soused?" said Corso.  
  
"Ossified," said Shin.  
  
"Fossilized," said Lin, and the waitress arrived as if on cue. She plucked down a shot glass for each of them and placed a large bottle of bourbon in the middle of the table.  
  
"This way you can go as fast as you want to," she explained.  
  
"Someone must have warned you about us," Spike said. She patted his head and he batted her hand away. Miffed, she walked away from the table.  
  
Shin brought his fist down on the table with a loud thump. "All right, I'll start. Corso, this is how we play the game: As soon as I drain my shot I pound the table. As soon as I pound the table the person to the right-" he indicated Spike- "drains his shot. As soon as he drains his shot, he pounds the table. Got it?"  
  
"It's not to hard to get," Corso replied.  
  
"It can be after a while," he said, smiling. Then he ceremoniously took his shot and overturned it into his mouth, and brough his fist down so hard it nearly broke the table. Spike had his shot ready. He drained and pounded. Lin drained and pounded. Corso drained and pounded. All the conversation stopped and was replaced by pounding, which got louder and louder and disrupted everyone's attempt at pouring. That added to the game, of course. It didn't end until one person declared their supremacy in holding their liquor. Soon the pounding resolved into a rhythm, a tribal beat that everyone followed, until it was disrupted by a gunshot. 


	15. Trust

Chapter 15  
  
Trust  
  
"Floor." It was the first word Spike had learned in the Syndicate. Mao had taught it to him. Floor was in between running and dying. The Syndicate didn't want runners, but it didn't want dead men either. You stayed and fought so long as it was possible, but you escaped the blows.  
  
Corso hadn't been here long enough to learn Syndicate priorities, but he was already under the table and had sighted the gunner. Shin and Lin were down too. Corso squinted slightly and shot. The gunner, a tall black woman, dodged. Corso shot again and she fell. "There's more," he said.  
  
"Black Adders," said Shin. Spike nodded. This was the first strike in what would come to be known as the Syndicate Wars. Spike surveyed the room, looking for more Black Adders. Of course he wouldn't find them. You couldn't see an adder before it struck. He was surprised they'd sent one of the family out after them. Spike mentally cursed Vicious. Sure, syndicate life was fun, challenging in its own way, but with syndicate duties and inter-syndicate war, it was impossible. He wondered how Vicious hoped to preserve the Red Dragons under the stress. But then, he probably didn't plan to preserve them at all.  
  
"Door," he said. You ran when there was nothing to fight over, when you were just fighting over yourself as a commodity. Spike, Shin, and Lin were no lackeys. They were skilled and distinctive members of the Red Dragons. It was probably why they were targets. Spike had a feeling the days of drinking at Harry's were over. Spike led the line to the back exit, weaving around the crowd. A shot rang out, and a woman he was brushing past fell. He looked back, knowing she was dead. Her eye was a bloody socket. As Corso passed her, he grabbed her and kept her at his side, glancing in the direction of the shot and firing. A human shield. The mark of a soldier. Spike turned back towards the exit and bulldozed through it, and turned back at the last moment when he realized someone was probably at all possible exits. A shot glanced off the metal door and he shot towards the direction of the gunner without looking. When he'd found the gunner he saw he was shot in the shoulder. He shot again and the gunner was down. Shin made a shot towards the roof. He'd already picked out the fourth. The third, Spike figured, would be behind the dumpster. He fired at the dumpster, knowing the gunner would probably wait until they were in a more vulnerable position. Provoked, his fire was returned. He dove for the ground almost before he heard the shot. He tumbled so he had the space between the dumpster and the wall at an angle. He could make out flesh, a glint of metal, and he shot at it. The glint fell slowly as a star across the horizon. He ran to the dumpster, saw a retreating movement, and shot three times. Shin, Lin, and Corso were already heading out. Spike could see another gunner in the frame of the exit. He followed the others, running erratically to avoid anticipated bullets. That was the third rule. When you run, do it well. Avoid patterns.  
  
Shin turned down an alley a block down and the others followed. Spike felt the buzz of his communicator and switched it on. He wasn't surprised to see Vicious's face. It was impassive as usual.  
"I got word of the situation," Vicious said. "I'm sending Julia to pick you at the Caetano district, at 4th and Julius."  
"Did a little bird tell you?" Spike asked.  
"A hacker found an old communication. There are two other attacks in progress."  
"What are you doing about it?" Spike asked.  
"Mao can handle it," Vicious replied. "He's the boss, not me."  
Spike cursed under his breath and Vicious's image faded from the communicator. He increased his pace and pulled to the front of the group, turning down an alley. "We're headed to the Caetano district!" he shouted behind him. He ran up a fire escape, hearing shots as he disappeared through a window into an old maid's apartment. A cat meowed loudly at him, and he ran past it to the door. He looked back to see Shin, Lin, and Corso behind him. Spike exited the apartment, heading toward the elevator. Most Martian tenements had the same structure. He hoped this elevator let off at the roof. Corso shot the paneling above the elevator and Spike turned to him.  
"So they won't see what floor we get off at," he said by way of explanation, and Spike nodded tersely. The elevator opened and the three got in. It was a tiny elevator with a fence that had to be entirely closed before the elevator would move. Shin was the last in, and Lin had to close the gate because Shin couldn't turn around to do so. The four looked at each other as the whirring of the elevator indicated its ascent. As the adrenaline flow slowed down, the colors became bright with the effects of liquor. Corso started to giggle. Shin looked at him for a moment before he started to laugh. Then Lin started. By the time they reached the roof, the four were in hysterics. The elevator made a brusque stop and the four spilled out of it gracelessly, into the nighttime Martian air.  
"What do we do now?" Shin asked Spike, who was still chuckling.  
"Over here!" Spike turned to see Vicious standing five rooftops away. He saw Vicious speak into his communicator, presumably to Julia. Spike ran to the edge of the building and made a leap onto the next building, a storey down. The others followed. Spike made his way across three more rooftops when he saw a Black Adder make his ascent beside Vicious. Spike got the target in sight and Vicious, thinking Spike was aiming for him, started to run at him with his sword. Before he'd halved the distance between them, Spike shot the Adder. Vicious turned to the direction of the shot, saw the downed Adder, and turned back to Spike sheepishly.  
"You've really got some trust issues to work out," Spike told Vicious.  
There was another shot. Spike turned, saw an Adder disappear, and saw Lin go down. Corso softened his fall, ran to the edge of the roof, and started firing. Spike went to his side. There were three gunners. Two were down, and one had found shelter. Spike tried to aim at an opening. There was a sudden silver glimmer to his left, and Spike saw Vicious leap five stories down, sword first. The sword pierced the metal siding the gunner was using as a shelter. When Vicious withdrew it, the sword was stained with blood. Vicious vaulted up the fire escape up to the roof. "I think we're safe," he said. "But Julia's already headed this way." At the sentence, Spike heard the distinctive sound of Julia's convertible. The group headed down the fire escape, Corso slinging Lin over his shoulder. He was the last down. He settled into the car, propping Lin's head up.  
"You okay?" he asked. Julia looked back at the two impassively.  
  
Lin nodded. "They only got my shoulder. But it was my shooting hand."  
  
"That's why you should learn to shoot from both sides," Vicious lectured.  
  
"One will always be better," Lin replied.  
  
Corso grinned like a boy. "So is it always like this?"  
  
"Well," said Spike, looking pointedly at Vicious, "We've never had any inter-Syndicate trouble before."  
  
"Man, this is even better than when I used to go to the matches to see my mom fight."  
  
"Your mom was a fighter?" Julia asked. If Spike didn't know her better it would have sounded like an idle question.  
  
"The best in Aurora Borealis. This one time she shattered a guy's chest with one punch."  
  
Spike wondered if Vicious noticed the flicker in Julia's eye at the statement, or if he noticed how closely Corso's hair corresponded to her own. Vicious's face was unreadable. The car surged forward, and they speeded forward into the night. 


	16. Corso

All characters and thematic elements belong to Sunrise Inc. and Bandai entertainment  
  
Well, sorry to be so slow, and this is a bit of a teaser, but hell, I've  
got a life and no one reviews.  
  
Chapter 16  
  
Julia surveyed the empty geometry of her room as she waited for the ringing of her communicator to be replaced with a human voice. The room fit her. Everything had a purpose and little else. Except for the nothing laced around it, the space that was barely broken from its square form. "Delaware" her communicator buzzed.  
  
"It's Julia."  
  
She had never known, until that night long ago, what kind of viciousness lay coiled like a snake around her heart. It struck before she knew it. The opportunity opened before her in the ring, a diamond that could only be cut at this particular time and this particular place. His chest had shattered when she hit it. Nothing to do with force, everything to do with precision.  
  
"Delaware, do you still have my brother's body?"  
  
There was a pause. "Why?"  
  
"Do you have it?"  
  
"I could find it," he said with a note of suspicion.  
  
His ribcage had healed stronger than before, except for one piece that remained lodged between the ventricles of his heart. It was that piece that kept him from fighting again. If he was hit the wrong way, he would die. Like her, he had fought for a living. She had taken away his livelihood, and she couldn't take it back.  
  
"I want you to run an HPB on it," Julia told him.  
  
Nor could she take back all she had done under the threat of the Syndicate, or all she did now. The only solace she had was that none of the deaths, none of the violence had been committed with the viciousness she'd felt that night. In the Syndicate, she had killed every one of her emotions. She could act but remain divorced from the action. She'd thought it would be better.  
  
"Julia, you know how the Syndicate works."  
  
"Yes, that's exactly why I'm asking you to do this for me. The Syndicate would kill someone useless to them like your father. But my brother was young, with the lineage of a Kamodo member. He was so young they brainwashed him into thinking I was his mother."  
  
Strange, that he would remember her as his mother. But then, she had been as much to him. Yes, once, she had been someone. And then, she had been only a thing of purpose, a purpose made by herself. She'd hoped to regain her identity with Vicious, but now purpose poked its inevitable head into the situation.  
  
"Julia. I'm worried."  
  
"Corso," she said. "Find everything you can on Corso Alistair. And run an HPB on my brother's body. You know full well the Kamodos had clones." She closed the circuit on her communicator, in no mood to defend herself. She tried to will it into reality.  
  
One day, she might have a room with more than furniture. One day, she might arrange things in space to give it meaning, and warmth. It depended entirely on Corso. 


	17. Pieces

Long time, no update, I know. Sooooorry. Characters and thematic elements belong to someone other than me.

Spike sighed, leaning against the wall outside of Shin's apartment. He'd already smoked half a cigarette waiting for him to open the door. When it finally opened, it wasn't Shin, but Corso. He was bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only trousers. There was a scar from a long-ago bullet dangerously close to his heart.

"Hey," said Corso. "He's in the shower." He stepped back to let Spike in. "I made some rice if you want." He padded over to the kitchen area.

"Yeah," said Spike. "I'm always hungry." He sat down on the long sectional couch that made a right angle at an odd anlge in the room. The kitchen was partially blocked by an enormous fish tank filled with alien aquatic life from Titan. Corso's figure beyond it was distorted through the water. "They haven't found you an apartment yet?" he asked casually. He could see Corso's figure shift. He didn't answer, working over the rice cooker longer than was necessary, and returned with two heaping bowls of rice.

Spike accepted and started to shovel the rice into his mouth. He stopped when Shin entered the room, clothed only in a towel, hair untoweled and still dripping. "Hey Cor-" he started, and saw Spike. Spike rose his hand in greeting. It wasn't like Shin to walk around a shared apartment in a towel. The guy was practically a Puritan when it came to exposing himself, and he never made eye contact in a locker room situation. "Oh," said Shin. "Hold on." He left the room, identical red splotches appearing on either cheek.

"What's up?" said Spike to Corso. Corso shrugged and stared into his rice bowl, hair the exact same shade as Julia's veiling the uppermost part of his face. Spike remembered his comment from the other night, and Julia's slight response. "Seems like there's something going on," Spike muttered, mostly to himself.

Shin returned, fully clothed. "What brings you here?"

Spike turned to Shin seriously. "A one-on-one game of catch up," he replied.

"Right." Spike scooped up a last bit of rice with his chopsticks. "You ready?"

"Always," Spike replied.

"Excuse me, Corso," Shin said. "I'll be back."

"So tell me, Spike..." said Shin as they were shuffling down the corridor. "Considering what I know, there's probably quite a bit I don't know."

"Yeah," said Spike, wishing he could tell Shin how much. "You know pretty much all of it. Julia killed Vicious's father, and Vicious has started a syndicate war."

They waited for an elevator. "Then what don't I know?"

"It's just... I'm getting a bit worried about Vicious."

"Spike, I've always been a bit worried about Vicious."

Vicious stood at attention by Mao in front of the elders. He wondered why Spike hadn't been invited. He hazarded a look at Mao, and could help feeling superior, and aggravated at being relegated to a position below him. The elders spoke.

"Sometimes," one began, "the distance one has from one's object results in a fracturing of one's identity and perspective."

"However," another continued, "sometimes one moves away from an object to gain a better view by placing a lens in between that clarifies one's vision."

"Such is the case today," the first resumed. "No longer will the elders be directly involved with the affairs of the Red Dragons. Due to certain complications-" a glance at Vicious "we have decided to find a lens with which to prevent the consequences of actions informed by distorted vision."

"The Van," said a third, "are the results of generations of selective breeding. They are prescient. No other syndicate is aware of them. The Komodo syndicate is responsible for them. The only reason we are aware of them is because of the documents Julia had provided us with."

The corners of Vicious's lips quirked at that. Despite the problems between them he couldn't help but feel a swell of pride. The Van were unveiled. They looked like gargoyles, stout with age, eyes bulging with lifetimes that remembered nothing of youth.

"Do not be fooled by their looks," the first Elder said. "They are adolescents. A side effect of their breeding. From now on, we will be informed by them, and we will inform only the leader of the Red Dragon syndicate."

"Mao Yenrai," said the second.

Vicious shifted. His plans were more complicated now.

"That's crazy," said Shin. He cracked his stick into the cue ball and pocketed doubles. "How could he think you were aiming at him?"

"That's..." Spike shook his head, watching Shin line up another shot. "There are certain things that have been going on for the past six months that I really can't put into words. You'd have to be there. It's Julia. She's the thing propping him up now. Without her..."

"He'll become his father." Shin pocketed another ball. He was three shots away from kicking Spike's ass.

"Yeah," said Spike sadly. "But she doesn't need him. Loves him, doesn't need him. So I think he was becoming-- well, there were some trust issues. I don't know. I don't want to get into it. I'm just worried about him."

"Well, I'll be sure to keep an eye on him."

"The reason for this conversation is so that you know why to be easier on him," said Spike.

"Please explain," Shin said cooly, and took another shot. The ball vibrated between the banks and rested a centimeter away from the pocket.

"Your job description has shifted."

"My job description is to take orders from my superior and get paid for it."

"Yeah, well. Mao isn't your superior."

Shin stood. "How in the world is what Vicious wants so different from what Mao wants?"

"Vicious wants to drive the whole thing into the ground. All the syndicates."

"What?"

"And so does Julia," said Spike. "And so do I. Please, I need your help."

Corso roused from his nap at the sound on his door. Couldn't be Shin. Wouldn't knock. He answered the door. The girl from the other night was standing there. He noted the color of her hair and her eyes, but didn't compare the shade to his own. Instead, he compared it to his mother. She looked so much like her.

"I'm sorry, I forget your name," he said. She smiled without teeth.

"Julia," she said.

"Huh," he said. It seemed like the geometry of the room was converging in his head. He needed to sit. "Something," he said, "about that."

"Are you all right?" she asked. His mother. She looked just like her. His knees buckled.

"Allistaire," she was saying, and he knew she wasn't meaning to be saying that. Allistaire, that was his childhood friend, who looked just like him and had a sister who knew his mother-- no, his sister was his mother, and then they came for them and there was a room and there was someone at the desk telling him all this and more in between the passes of a golden ball on a string. What was it they had said? That he should kill her. Of course, he only had to kill her and then he could go back and be Allistaire again, and Julia would be there.

"Allistaire!" she yelled. His hands were around her throat and she wasn't crying any more. So soft, that throat. Soft as any woman's throat. And then there was blackness.

Julia staggered to her feet and looked down at the crumpled form of her brother. She should have known they would have programmed some sort of failsafe in him. Particularly if they were sending him to her. But, perhaps without the guidance of the Komodo syndicate they had forgotten all about them.

She should take care of him, in case he woke up still trying to kill her.


	18. Gravity

Bet you thought it'd be another year before I updated. Surprise! I do not own these characters, etc. etc.

1.

Shin and Spike had been quiet on the way back to Shin's apartment. Shin was one of those ethical criminals, who thought of loyalty as a necessary weapon of an organization like the Syndicate. No one went into a syndicate with a death wish. Syndicates wouldn't accept dangerous loners. When a person put himself above the organization, he was putting it at risk. To go Vicious's way was to go the way of chaos. But now that he saw that his path was irreversible he had to choose between his friends and his organization. He wasn't sure how his brother figured into it. No matter what he did his brother might hate him, but if he acted quickly enough, if he were to go to Mao, he might be able to prevent his brother from facing danger. And there was plently, Shin knew, that Spike wasn't telling him. Spike wouldn't follow Vicious unless he thought they could make it happen. Whatever it was that they wanted. And what was it that Vicious wanted? To destroy all of the Syndicates, as a sort of personal revenge. He wanted a war because of what had happened within his lone family. Shin had always seen that Vicious held himself above the Red Dragons. Or, apart. Different, more important than the whole. Shin didn't like it at all. They entered the building and took the elevator up. He looked over at Spike, who looked over, feeling the stare.

"You don't like what I'm asking you, huh?"

Shin didn't answer.

Spike sighed. "Think of the alternative. You think they'd take him out? Then all the families would be after the Red Dragons. You might stall his plans, but if you can't get rid of Vicious it'll go a lot worse for you, and the Syndicate."

Shin looked past Spike. "I'm supposed to act out of fear for a rich boy's temper tantrum?"

"I didn't expect you to decide just like that," Spike offered lamely.

They stepped out of the elevator. Shin pressed his finger to a panel of the door and opened it, leaving it open for Spike. Negotiations were still in order. Spike was going to have to play this more carefully than he'd expected. They were friends, he'd thought. If ony it weren't Vicious driving the boat.

"Where's Corso?" Shin asked, looking around.

"How should I know, and why do you care?" Spike took out a pack of cigarettes and withdrew one. He thought of the night Corso was inducted into the Red Dragons. The sharpshooter had been aiming for him.

"That's weird," said Shin.

"He's probably out somewhere. Why hasn't the Syndicate got him digs yet?"

Shin laughed and grabbed his head.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's really strange, though. He usually never goes out. Trains and studies all the time. Like a machine."

"What's up with you and Corso?"

"What's up with Vicious and Julia?" Shin replied tiredly, giving Spike a significant look.

"Oh." His cigarette dangled between his lips. Spike laughed suddenly and hit Shin on the shoulder. "Well why'd you gotta be so secretive about it?"

Shin looked away. "Just politics, you know."

"You know," said Spike, "If you two are--" he caught an irritated frown "Listen, it's just that the night he was inducted, Julia and I took down a sharpshooter. He was aiming for Corso. And he was one of ours."

Shin seemed to be concentrating. "Well, fuck me," he muttered.

2.

"Are you all right?" Her voice, from long ago.

"Where did you go?" His mother, his sister. He barely remembered his father. And it was all different, before she left. That part of his life was contained, safe. Before they'd changed him.

"Allistaire?" He was tied, to a wooden chair. His limbs kept on twitching. He knew they were aching to be freed into murderous arches. What they had sent him here for. Some kind of sick joke, to them. Serendipity, for them.

"God, I understand now."

"What?"

He moaned in pain. He desperately wanted to be freed. His heart was beating too fast, weakening him with its panicked tachycardia. He kept on going back and forth between the past and now. Now was a room, expansive and largely bare. Spartan. It didn't surprise him. It was so much like their old room. She made him keep it neat, to teach him discipline. She needed him to be disciplined so she could take care of him better, make him safer. Their father, after all, had been a Syndicate man.

Not that the image ever held any aspect of child-idol fantasy for them. He'd seen what his father did for the Syndicate. He'd seen his father shoot a man.

Allistaire's stomach reeled. Hadn't seen life leave a man that way since that day. They had ripped it from him, his understanding of what killing was. They made it something different for him, a thing of adrenaline and necessity. And in all that, he'd forgotten. Why it was wrong.

Just shot the guy. Nothing more. He'd seen it on the television. But on the television, you didn't see their whole body jerk with death. You didn't see the blood just running straight out of their nose and left eye, just falling blood, pulled straight down by gravity, along with the soul or whatever it is that made someone alive, and meaningful. He'd seen his father do that. He never saw it done to his father. And he knew it had happened to his mother, so long ago that he didn't remember her.

Julia knew not to tell him cowboy stories, adventure stories, ghost stories. Stories with violence and death. She told him about their mother, and their father, and how they'd loved each other. How their mother's face would crack half open with a smile. How beautiful she was, with black hair and blue eyes. How she used to hug her father whenever she saw him come home, and they'd talk to each other in an embrace for a long long time, so Julia had thought they'd forgotten they had children.

Allistaire opened his eyes. "Julia." He was crying. "Oh, God, what am I?"

She looked like she'd been hit. She kept looking at him like she'd drown if he didn't help her. But he couldn't.

"Oh God," he gasped. "I killed them all." The training. The war. It was still going on. His friends were still there. Gren was still there. And somewhere in the asteroid belt, blood was falling straight down, pulled by the interminable force of gravity. He tried to vomit, but couldn't. He was already empty. Julia had her hands on his cheeks, desperately rubbing them. He felt her warm sweater-clad arms move around him and pull his face into her shoulder. He sobbed into it. It was doing no good. Everything was falling around him. He felt like dying. He had to do something to stop this feeling like he was collapsing in on himself. He hadn't been himself for... six years. And looking over those six years with recovered eyes made him understand that sobbing wasn't going to do anything. Julia still held him, and after a long time he fell asleep on her shoulder, and she moved him to the bed. His limbs were still jerking, but they were no longer dangerous.

3.

"What?" Spike was looking disbelievingly into his reciever. "I-" He looked over at Shin. "Yeah, I'll be there."

Shin stood by the window, looking past Spike, his hands in his blazer pockets. "It's about Corso, isn't it?

"Something going on with him," Spike said briefly. "I can't explain right now. But he's fine."

Shin shrugged, looked at Spike after a moment. "And you gotta go help out, right?"

Spike nodded.

"Then go to it," said Shin, almost bitterly. "Tell me if anyone else tries to shoot him or something."

Spike had a feeling there was a whole lot that he'd missed over the past six months as well. He moved briskly towards the door, sparing another glance at Shin as he left. Julia hadn't said anything abou what was going on, just that it was about Corso.

"My money's on the White Tigers," she said later, in her apartment, over Corso's pale form. It was the first thing she said to Spike. She smiled a little. "My brother." Her arms were folded. Her head drooped a little. She put a hand over her face, and Spike's hand falteringly drifted to her shoulder. When he touched it, he could feel the minute jerks she was hiding. She was crying, soundlessly. Spike awkwardly pulled her towards him. She didn't pull away, instead burying her face in his shoulder. He could feel the dampness, but there was still no sound. Spike could smell the perfume left by the shampoo in her hair. He rested his chin on it, and brought his other hand to her back and moved it in circles. It was something he remembered his mother doing.He had a feeling they would all be better off with their mothers. Why did they leave so soon? His own had died, early, and he'd left his father as soon as he could. It had been years since he talked to him. One of Julia's hands clutched his forearm and squeezed. Spike didn't want to let go of her, but she pulled back inevitably. "Sorry," she said, turning away from him.

"What happened?"

"He tried to kill me. Soon as he heard my name."

"You think that's why they sent him here?"

"I don't know," said Julia. "Probably."

"The sharpshooter," said Spike.

"Yeah, he probably knew."

"There's probably others who know."

"I know." She was silent, and then said, hoarsely, "They made him a killer. It was like... When he last talked to me it was my brother, but it was like they'd taken him away for six years and he just got back in his body."

Spike expelled a breath. "Motherfuckers." The corners of her lips quirked a little. "What are we going to do?"

"That's why I called you," she said.

Some part of Spike was glad it was him she'd thought of, even though it was because they were both spies. "I guess maybe we should call Harley and Delaware."

"Yeah," said Julia. "Not Delaware. Harley understands."


	19. Between a Rock and a Hard Place

You know, I never really have author's notes, but I figure now would be a good time to have one. The great thing about the show, I think, was this mysterious past between Vicious, Spike, and Julia that was never quite explained. And that's what has made this fic so continuously inspiring for me to write, as opposed to my abandoned other fics. For the record, I'm a huge fan of Faye. But there are so many intriguing questions in the Spike/Vicious/Julia dynamic. How did Vicious go from a guy that was Spike's best friend, who had his back in a fight, to someone insane who was out to kill both Spike and Julia? It couldn't be simply a lover's spat, or a simple betrayal. There had to be other reasons for him to become so unhinged. And how did Spike come to betray his best friend, and Julia betray her lover? They seem like decent people. That's why it's taking me so long to come to their story. There had to be reasons. I don't think either of them would betray so easily. And after all that, how could Julia and Spike part at the end, in such a way that Spike wouldn't go looking for her? Those are the main questions for me. I think there are times when I've accidentally broken a bit of continuity, and my knowledge of the solar system has gone from zip (Aurora Borealis? Oops. I think I meant Milky Way) to a bit more adequate. Anyway, just in case any readers were wondering what's propelling this ship. Hang on. Everything will make sense in the end. And I'll try to be better about updating, although I'd appreciate a review once in a while.

Characters, thematic elements, and the guiding plot elements belong not to me but to Bandai and Sunrise Inc.

1.

Allistaire woke up in Julia's apartment. He recognized it, was spared the crash course from ignorance to memories. He remembered everything. He remembered he was Allistaire. He remembered being made Corso, and being Corso. The guilt was still there, of all the deaths on his hand. Like a hundred scabs he couldn't stop picking. If only he'd shot the one in the shoulder instead, if only he'd at least made the death easier for the other one. But he was in a different place now, and he had found his sister. He saw her in the corner of the room, huddled close on the couch with another man, who he'd met the other night drinking with Lin and Shin. Shin... That much he didn't regret. But he had no idea how to move forward now. Shin was a killer. And Allistaire didn't want another death on his hands. Julia's head inclined towards him, and he knew she'd noticed that he was awake. She rose and came to his bed. The other man-- Spike-- remained. Julia sat on his bed. God, he hadn't felt the comfortable pressure of someone sitting on the bed he was laying on since he was twelve. She put a hand on his face, and looked over to Spike.

"Don't worry about him," she said. "He's like me." She smiled a bit. "You remember what happened at the Komodo Syndicate?"

"Yeah," said Allistaire. Pieces were starting to fit together. There had been one survivor. Julia. "Why didn't you find me?"

"Thought I did," she said, so soft he barely heard it. "They identified your body."

Allistaire shuddered. He had come so close to living out his whole life as the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to be. He'd come so close to never finding the last of his family. "Oh. Then... Why didn't you escape?"

"Because," said Julia, "If all this could be destroyed, I wanted to do what I could to make sure." Her voice was hard. He didn't remember it ever being that hard.

"So... Who are you working for?"

"The ISSP. So is Spike. He knows, Allistaire. He'll help."

"Help what?" asked Allistaire.

"Well," said Julia softly, "What do you want?"

"Never to kill again."

There was a look in her eyes, a sadness. He knew she'd gone beyond that. She was a killer. They'd made his sister a killer. "Of course," she said. "We'll find a way to get you out."

Allistaire nodded.

"Can you tell me..." Julia trailed off, not sure of the specific question. "I mean, why they sent you here?"

"Yes," he said. "I think they always kept me as a card up their sleeve, the White Tigers. But they weren't worried about you at all. Even after Komodo they must not have cared. It wasn't you they were trying to get at, it was Vicious."

Her eyebrows drew together. "What?"

"They sent me to kill you. As soon as I learned your name--- well, you saw what it was, the trigger I mean. But it was only to get at Vicious, so that he would be careless."

There was a muscle working at her jaw. "Vicious."

"I don't understand," said Allistaire. "If you're a spy--"

She was looking at him, looking like she was in between a rock and a hard place. Looking like how he felt about choosing between Shin and leaving. "Vicious wants what I do."

"To-- what, to end the Syndicates?

"Yes."

"Why?"

She looked at him like he should know the answer. "Because of what they do, Allistaire. Because of what they did to him."

"Does he know? That you're a spy?"

"Yes," said Julia.

His heart squeezed beyond bearing. "I don't want you to die," he whispered.

She laughed a little. Laughed. The things he'd heard about Vicious, and she was laughing. How far gone could she be? "Allistaire, we'll have a long talk about Vicious one day. I-- yeah, I love him. I can help him. But," she said, looking at him, "You come first, little brother. I want you to know that. You come before anything, now. I won't lose you again."

"It's all right," said Allistaire, before thinking of something else. "Don't tell him, Julia. About me."

She nodded. "Whatever you want, I'll give you." And he knew it was true.

2.

Spike was looking at her, across the table. They hadn't said much. She'd put in a call to Harley, and been sipping her tea. "What?" she asked.

"I think it's a mistake not to say anything to Vicious."

There was a pause. He had a feeling she would be unyeilding.But he felt he should probably speak anyway.

"It's all over if he finds this out after you didn't tell him."

"How so?"

"I mean it's all over between you. And whatever it is you're trying to do here, whatever grand plan you have that makes your efforts and his efforts... and my efforts, worthwhile... This decision could make all that nothing."

"This grand plan..." said Julia. "Me being here in the first place was because of my brother. Everything, do you understand, everything I have done over the years, killing people, you know I never killed before they took him, living without him, surviving, everything... It was for him. And when he was gone, I still did everything for him." Her eyes were locked on his now. She was angry. Not at him, but everything that had made things this way. "And despite that, I wasn't there for him. Despite that... Do you know what they did to him? Making him a killer? Do you know how much he despised that act? He despised my father for doing it. Doesn't even know how I could willingly do it. God, they took him to hell for six years, and he was my responsibility. You don't know what that is, to have a responsibility over someone. He is my brother. He is my only family. You aren't my family. No one here is my family. Not even Vicious. If he asked me to anything I would do it."

Spike nodded. "So basically what you're saying is everything you have asked of me and of Vicious you are willing to throw away because of the slightest whim of your brother."

She didn't look away. "Yes," she said. There wasn't any guilt in it.

"You're so dead wrong and you don't even see it," he replied, and stood, throwing a few woolongs on the table to pay for their drinks.

"Are you going to tell him?" she asked.

"No," Spike said. "What would that do? I'm going to hope this works out, because it sure won't work out if it doesn't work out between you and him. He loves you. Lots more than you love him."

Spike left. He was a good man, Julia thought. Better than her, probably better than Vicious. She shook it off. Her brother still had a chance.

Outside, Spike lit a cigarette and couldn't stop thinking about Julia. A lion now that she had her cub to protect. He understood, he could see the justice of it, and he admired the hell out of it. But the kind of strength she had now was dangerous as hell, and he had a feeling it would be their undoing.


	20. Faraway so Close

1.

"You seem like you're a long way off." Come back to me.

"I am, my love, I am." It's a long way to go between the two of you.

"Where are you?" So I can find you.

"I don't think I know." Is that true? Can I be true to you?

He looked at her and she looked back, gold eyes into blue, but they both knew there was something different, so they closed their eyes and kissed, just kissed, in case they could find something if they made sure to go slowly. They kissed, paying attention to each move, the subtlety of the interplay, they kissed. They were pressed against each other, hands going over all the clothed inches they knew so well, trying to find something different, something they hadn't noticed before, a sign that would lead them back to each other. They touched. He brought his hand under her shirt, she was ready she was always ready for him, she didn't need slowness anymore she just needed him and she didn't even take off her clothes, and neither did he. He just opened her trousers and she pulled off her underwear, and not even all the way. And for a few minutes there was exquisite comfort, that built into something else. Something else, something heightened, an expression of something lost. And in their relief they lay besides each other, but soon they fell into their own dreams, as far away from each other as they had begun.

2.

"Where were you?"

Allistaire looked at Shin for a long time, and Shin asked him again. He walked to a couch and sat down.

"Corso."

He put his head in his hands. "I need to tell you some things, Shin."

Shin sat next to him, put his hand on him. A killer's hand. Allistaire had seen him kill. "Tell me."

Allistaire looked at the floor. "My name is Allistaire."

He could feel Shin shift into a more rigid posture.

"It's not like that. It is, but, well..." He laughed bitterly. "It's a bit of a long story."

"Tell me," Shin repeated.

And Allistaire told him, for the first time he put it into words, what used to be his innocence, and then he moved through his experience, and wondered, put his wonder into words, if he could gain back what he had been. Put into words the question, what he was, what the overlap was between Corso and Allistaire. And looking back at Shin, in whose eyes he saw a deep love and a deep willingness to help him find answers and comfort, even to change, knew. Shin was the overlap between what he had been and what he had woken up to. Shin, who killed and who loved, who was not who he'd thought he would love like this, but who he did love. He still did. He had the feeling looking at him that he fit, he was what he needed to see, he was the person who he needed to fit the puzzle around. And he hadn't even felt that before. Desire, he had felt, and a sense of taboo, and fear, but looking at him now he knew he would love him for the rest of his life, even if Shin grew out of it, as people did so often.

"I'm sorry," said Shin. "Tell me what you need, and I'll help you."

"I need to get out. I need never to kill again. I want you to come with me."

There was a pause. Shin didn't, Allistaire knew, make promises lightly. The pause made him comfortable. "I will. It may take a while, and I will probably have to kill to do it. I hope you can live with that. But when I'm done, and I go to you, I will give that up."

Allistaire smiled. Shin said his name, his new name, his real name, his old name, tested it with his mouth, and Allistaire tasted the mouth that made that sound, and they shifted against each other and into each other and closer and closer and fell asleep together.


	21. Overlap

Nothing is mine.

1.

"Allistaire."

He said his own name to his reflection, and thought of his old one. He thought, "Corso." Corso hadn't disappeared. Corso had left his things in Allistaire's room. Strategic military histories, accounts of weapons, of generals, advanced statistics and probabilities books. Corso had left his gun collection, his knife collection, even some hand grenades and a laser saber. Corso had chosen his clothes, every single one of which resembled a uniform. Corso had chosen Shin as a lover, and had left Gren. Left Gren... why? Because Gren was too needy, to sweet, too goodhearted, too beautiful. Because Gren was who Allistaire would have chosen.

He and Gren had met doing reconnaissance on foot. One of the most dangerous missions you could be sent on. Corso had been chosen because of his skill and lack of fear. He had thought Gren had been chosen because everyone wanted to get rid of him. Gren tried to make small talk the whole way to the Neptunian base. Corso grew more and more astounded each time. No one tried to talk to him after they saw what he could do. Gren was so unlike any other soldier. He talked more. He gave him a close-lipped smile every time Corso looked at him. If he hadn't been so confident about being a nice guy Corso would have been annoyed. It wasn't until Gren spotted a glint in the distance that Corso missed and pulled him out of a bullet's way and took it in the shoulder that Corso had any respect for him. He remembered, Allistaire remembered, Gren didn't even groan. Had gotten back up and moved on, pulling out the bullet without any expression on his face and filling the wound with sand.

For all of Corso's presumed superiority, it hadn't been Gren who had been caught. It had been Corso. And Corso, despite the implanted deadly thread in him that made others fear him despite his looks, still looked for all the world like a girlish little boy. He was eighteen. He was blonde. The Neptunians were all dark-haired. They hadn't even noticed Gren. Gren hadn't made himself noticed, hadn't defended Corso when he was pulled aside. But then, the people that picked him up were backed up by a tank. And when they threw Corso out, days later, his back torn into strips, near the final stages of dehydration, Gren had been waiting for him. Hauled him over a shoulder and brought him to a cave. He gave him water, and the first thing Corso had said to him was, "You're so stupid." And Gren gave him that close-lipped smile, and Corso's heart had dropped into his stomach. Maybe the torture had reminded him of previous torture, of the torture that had turned him into this. Maybe he had remembered himself, briefly, as Allistaire. Maybe it was Allistaire whose heart had dropped.

"I have maps of the base," Gren said. He turned Corso onto his stomach and pulled off the remains of his shirt, and treated his wounds with an antiseptic. They had to wait a few days for Corso to be in shape to leave. They had to wait for the wounds to fight off two days of infections, and finally scab over. Through it all Gren made small talk. Bless him. They were lovers by the time they left.

But when the White Tigers told Corso it was over, that he had another mission, that there was syndicate war now and they needed him to be a spy, he left and didn't look back. Had managed to push Gren from his mind. And perhaps it was Allistaire whose heart had dropped when he met Shin, but Corso liked him better.

Allistaire turned to his chessboard. The only thing that was really his. He'd been a bit of a prodigy, and Julia had encouraged him to play. He sighed, and started to pull the books off the shelves. He knew the weapons probably had to remain for a while, until they figured out a way out of this place, but at least he could get rid of the books.


	22. Intensions

Nothing is mine. Aside from that usual disclaimer, my discipline in writing this story is waning, so unless there is a review it may be a long while before I resume the storytelling. It's not for sure or meant to be a threat at all. I just have no way of knowing if anyone is reading or enjoying the story, so I'm writing it mainly for my own enjoyment. If I find out someone wants to be updated I'll probably be spurred to write whereas I won't be if no one says a thing.

1.

"Hey." Spike didn't really have much else to say to Vicious. The last time they'd been together Vicious had thought Spike was aiming a gun at him. The time before that Vicious had woken him up with a sword to his throat.

"Spike," said Vicious. He had his coat on. He'd been about to leave. "The Van have requested my presence."

"The what?"

"They're prescient. Genetically modified to predict the future. The Elders procured them so they could distance themselves from our doings."

"Prescient? Then what about--"

"I've been doing research," said Vicious. "Come. Walk with me." Spike followed him down the fire escape. "It's a limited prescience. They're the result of a breeding program. That's the first problem. They're so inbred they're incapable of communicating except in riddles. Idiot savants. Second, they're only prescient when given the right information. It's sort of high-capacity statistics they're able to do. When given misinformation... The only real danger they are to us is in terms of telling character. And everyone already suspects mine. They would be a danger to you, and to Julia. However, only Mao and I have access to them. And the Elders." He shrugged. "Stupid really."

"Yeah," said Spike, lighting a cigarette. "Stupid." He sighed, making a note to fill in the blanks later. They walked in silence for a few moments. Neither knew how to start the conversation they knew they needed to have.

"What would you have done, Spike?" Vicious asked after several minutes had passed by. They had turned onto a side street. "The day the ISSP came to do what they did to Komodo?"

Spike took a drag from his cigarette. "I never thought about it," he said. "I mean, I tried not to. But in my defense when it came down to it I lost an eye for you. And I was willing to lose more."

Vicious nodded, sighed. "I'm... sorry." He looked up at the sky. It was grey, hinting at rain. Atmosphere akin to Earth's only because of human tampering. "When Julia wouldn't tell me... I knew before she told me. I had a lot of time to wonder what her motives were, what she was thinking from the first time she kissed me. How she could have kissed me at all. I had a lot of time to doubt."

"I understand," said Spike. A figure emerged from an intersection a few blocks down. Stayed in place. Immediately Spike knew the figure had intentions. He looked behind him, and saw that Vicious had noticed too, was scanning the tops of the buildings. Behind them was another figure.

Spike and Vicious shared a barely perceptible nod before taking positions back to back. The first figure was already shooting. Vicious deflected a shot with his blade, and saw terror in the figure's reaction. That was why he used his sword to deflect shots. No one short of myth could do that. Whoever saw that knew they were doomed. And knowing they were doomed made them more susceptible to desperation and desperation's ensuing mistakes. Vicious aimed and fired. The figure fell. Spike had taken out the other figure, but there were still shots. They were coming from above. Vicious couldn't find the figure. One of the shots bit into his shoulder. His sword arm. He could feel the unwravelled, broken muscles. And then there was another shot from Spike. The shots stopped.

"You all right?" Spike was facing him.

"Yeah. Nothing a little microsurgery won't fix."

"You go to the Van. I'll ID the bodies."

Vicious nodded. Spike turned on his communicator and put a call in to clean up. Vicious started to move away, saw Spike bend over one of the bodies. He stepped over the body of the one he had killed. He looked like boy. His face was crumpled up as though he'd fallen asleep crying. Vicious was rarely moved by anyone he killed, but the expression of the boy's face, cemented by quick expiration, would stay with him, if only for a short while.

2.

Vicious stood in his studio later that night, moonlight flooding through the window. Microsurgery had repaired the muscles in his arm, though a wound that signalled the invasion was left. He wore no shirt, so that his movements wouldn't be restricted. A block of wood was before him. Something his sword master had taught him, long ago, as a boy. Hitachi, his name had been. His father had killed him when he was nineteen. By then, Vicious had surpassed him. But that did not mean that he had no need of further instruction. Hitachi had seen the point at which Vicious surpassed him, knew the trajectory of where he was going. Hitachi could have guided him further, and Vicious had wanted that. Swordplay was an art, and that was what this exercise proved.

The first figure had been simple. An hourglass. Turn the block of wood into an hourglass. Cut fast enough so that the wood will not shift in its position. Know when the cut must stop, because sometimes, it was more vital to stop than to carry the blow through. Sometimes, you couldn't let your sword carry all the way through. You needed to stop so that you could bring it to another position. Cut so precisely that you could carve a sculpture out of wood, and with the speed at which you could murder. It was an exercise. One with infinite lessons embedded in it, so many that you never could learn all of them. So many that some you carried with you without knowing it.

"There is a traitor," the Van had said. Vicious could have smirked. Yeah, there was a traitor. Quite a few. Good call.

He had decided to carve a bodhisattiva.

Mao had looked at him when they said it. Vicious was starting to despise Mao. Mao had never trusted him, always pitied him, and now feared him. He knew Mao had had conversations with Spike when they first started to be friends.

A bodhisattiva, one who had achieved enlightenment, but who returned to help those who hadn't.

Vicious began. He swung the sword in a clean arc, a quick arc. He knew exactly where the sword must stop, and at that point he twisted the sword, drawing a chunk out of the wood.

Mao had told Spike that Vicious was dangerous.

He was.

Vicious brought the sword to the other side. Symmetry was important to him. There is no light without darkness, no strength without weakness. Vicious knew this, understood it. But it brought him no closer to enlightenment. That was why he identified with the bhodisattiva. Because he rejected nirvana. Because he knew this world was more important than the next one. Because he knew that while the world would never change, would always have horror, it was still necessary to bring the light. Vicious brought the darkness; the statue brought the light. He heard the door open behind him. He knew it was Julia.

She stood within the frame of the door, and leaned against it, watching Vicious's body accompany the movements of his sword. Underground rivers of muscle flowed and changed course. Like water. Spike had said something like that, about fighting. That you had to move like water. Like Vicious moved now. His hair swayed with his movement. He was beautiful, and her heart nearly broke at it, for him. She hadn't felt for him this way for a while.

He finished, and turned to her. She saw that he had been carving a statue. It was simple but complicated at the same time. A basic representation, but every detail accounted for. She moved toward it, towards him. Saw that it had perfect matching eyes, and simple robes hanging in a clean line to its feet. She looked at him and smiled faintly. Sweat beaded his forehead. She saw the bandage on his shoulder and brought her hand up to it, touched it, touched his chest lightly with her fingers. Those rivers were rigid now, like stone. Or metal. His eyes were yellow and hungry, and her gaze was food enough. The line between them tensed and brought them closer, but slowly, the fusion of their bodies and souls moving towards each other as though they would never touch, as though Xeno's paradox was the law of all movement. But they did touch, finally, breaking the paradox, still gazing as they kissed. He gasped and brought her tighter into him, pushed her top from her shoulders and her pants over her hips. He brought her up and held her legs so she was on a level with him, and broke contact with her lips only to crush his against her collarbone. Pink bloomed faintly at this. He was inside her. It was a relief like no other. He had regained the full extent of her relief, and she his, and their need crested in a great wave and crashed and they crashed against each other like water, and settled into earth.

There was a hazy afterglow of consciousness, and Julia's thoughts resolved. She thought, briefly, of Allistaire. Julia wondered if she could only feel this way when she had something to hide from Vicious, or if it was only a coincidence.


End file.
